#Made with two pieces of paper (I just realized I can make more cards from the scrap of one of them heeheehoohoo)

[sysig]

I have made

the rough

of an improv card game

[giuliannna]

LOST & FOUND

before you started dating hamzah, old memories resurfaced, making you realize they might still mean something.

firstboyfriend ! hamzah masterlist

the basement smells like dust and old laundry detergent. all you see is cardboard boxes and forgotten memories shoved into corners. it’s not exactly where you pictured spending the first real day of summer - your last summer home, the one dangling between high school and college - but your mom had other plans for you.

“just go through the boxes,” she said, waving you off with a knowing look. “some of that stuff’s yours and you’re not leaving it all here.”

so of course you dragged hamzah down with you.

he’s sitting cross-legged on an old blanket now. there’s a frayed bandaid on his knee and grass stains on his shorts from being outside before this. his curls are messy from biking over, his shirt slightly damp from how fast he pedaled.

“your basement is scary,” he says, tapping the side of an unlabeled box with his fingertips. “it smells weird.”

“it smells like your room.”

he gives you a flat look. “i cleaned my room.”

you laugh. “since when?”

“since you told me to,” he mutters under his breath, sheepish.

everything feels so easy with him. the kind of easy that makes time feel like it doesn’t really exist.

you open up a box. inside is a jumble of old notebooks, little trinkets made from polymer clay, a crooked photo of you and hamzah at someone’s birthday party - his toothy grin front and center, your eyes half-closed mid-laugh.

he looks over your shoulder at it now. you feel the heat from his body cascading down your back as he stands behind you.

you keep digging. there are pokémon cards, friendship bracelets, art supplies, and a beaded ring you thought you’d never see again. you hold it up. “oh my god, remember this?”

hamzah half-gasps, half-laughs. “you made that for me and i thought i lost it and you were mad at me for, like, two whole days.”

“i thought you betrayed me,” you say, glancing back at him with a grin.

“i cried over that, y’know.”

you did too - but you don’t say it out loud. instead, you pick up the box and place it on the floor, both of you sitting down to keep rummaging through it.

then hamzah makes a noise. a tiny oh? of curiosity. he’s holding something - a folded piece of paper, slightly yellowed, the edges worn.

“what’s that?” you ask.

hamzah squints. “m’not sure.”

he unfolds it gently, revealing large, lopsided handwriting in blue marker. at the top, underlined and bolded it reads, “CONTRACT.”

you freeze, your eyes going wide. “oh, no. no way.”

hamzah’s already smirking, his eyes scanning the page. “oh my god. we were actually insane.”

“read it,” you say, scooting closer until your knees bump his.

he clears his throat. “this says - if we are not married by age thirty we have to live together forever anyway because we’re best friends and we would be really good roommates and maybe we can get a cat too.”

you burst out laughing. “we wrote that?”

hamzah holds up a finger. “wait. there’s more.���

he flips the paper around, and there, at the bottom, is a scribbled drawing. stick figures - one with brown curls, one with what looks like pigtails or braids - standing under a crooked arch made of what might be balloons or clouds. they’re holding hands. there’s a tiny heart above them.

“i think that’s pretty good,” hamzah says proudly, eyes scanning his own art.

you smile, stifling a laugh. “you drew us getting married.”

“and?” he says, raising a brow. “it’s a legally binding contract.”

you look at the drawing again. and then - maybe it’s the dust or the heat or the fact that you’re leaving soon, that everything’s about to change - but something in your chest does a weird little flip.

“do you think we actually believed we’d do it?” you ask softly.

hamzah’s quiet for a second. then he says, “i think i wanted to.”

you don’t say anything else. neither does he. because if you do, it might become too obvious that you’re both thinking the same thing.

you kind of still want to.

you stare at the paper a second longer, thumb brushing over the crease down the middle, right through the hand-drawn heart. it’s so silly. ridiculous, even. the kind of thing two kids write in secret when the world still feels small enough to promise forever in.

but now that you’re older, legally an adult, “forever” doesn’t feel silly anymore. it feels like something real, something you don’t want to mess up.

you clear your throat, forcing a laugh. “well, then i guess we’d better start house hunting in, like, over a decade.”

“you think i’m gonna make it that long on my own? who’s going to tell me to clean my room?”

you roll your eyes. “i’m not your wife yet.”

yet.

he smiles at that. a real, slow, warm one. “not yet,” he echoes, voice teasing. but then he goes quiet, like he’s said too much or maybe exactly enough.

it’s always like this lately. these moments that feel like they’re almost something. like if one of you just reached just a little further, you’d tip right over the edge into something new.

hamzah gently places the contract in your lap like it’s fragile. then he shifts back to sit against a box, arms stretched behind his head, and looks up at the ceiling like he’s trying not to look at you.

you glance at him. he looks relaxed, but you can see the little things - the way his foot bounces, the slight twitch in his fingers. it’s all very subtle. anxious.

“do you think we’ll still talk every day?” you blurt out. “when we’re at different schools?”

hamzah doesn’t hesitate. “obviously.”

“you say that now, but..”

he turns to look at you, brows furrowed like you’ve insulted him, deep in his core. “stop. don’t even think like that.”

you nod, averting your gaze to your lap. “okay. yeah, you’re right.” you both go quiet again. the air is charged with dug-up memories. your knee is still brushing his, just barely. neither of you move away.

“i think,” hamzah says suddenly, voice quieter, “even if we hadn’t written that.. i still would’ve picked you.”

your chest tightens. your eyes flicker upwards to meet his, and your heart stutters in your chest.

“to live with,” he adds quickly. “i mean. as roommates. because you’d probably never leave dishes in the sink. and you don’t snore.”

you laugh, a little breathless. “you do.”

“i don’t.”

“you do.”

and then you’re laughing again, full and warm, and it feels like the kind of laugh you might look back on years from now, just like how you’re looking back today. the kind you’ll remember when you’re sitting in a dorm room alone and missing him so much it aches.

you fall back on the floor, staring up at the ceiling. “i feel like this summer’s gonna go by fast, isn’t it?”

hamzah stretches out beside you, arms tucked behind his head, so close you can feel the buzz of warmth of his skin against yours.

“yeah,” he says. “i think so.”

neither of you say it out loud, but the same thought hangs between you two anyway: we can’t waste it.

a/n: yay hii new au!!!

xoxo giulia

taglist: @gulicore @slushedup @arroganceisherfavoritecolor @layzerzlovesu46 @babysitter19 @marixoa @starjely @viennawaiits @h-yalexaaaa @freakzah444 @anginluv @gabwilliams @sturniyolo @screamertannie @brlwla @yourstrulykiya @hamzaholic @isathefantastic @divinesturn @forestlv4r @mayapuma20 @ottakugirl @hamzahsbestone @pulcen @rustnroll @venus-planetof-love @hamzahsn1gf @rock678 @wandas-lovey @guiltyfemcel @axetheboyboss @harrys0nlyange1 @ttlynotme @yassqueen1303 @animalcrossingshameless @opiumfidgetspinner @pictureperfectblue @slushingmynoob @vampzah @ilovezah

[musingsofmajesty]

𝐚 𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 | 𝐬𝐡𝐲 𝐞𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐞 𝐯𝐨𝐥. 𝐈𝐈

pairing shy eddie x flirty reader | summary now that you’ve kissed, the two of you can’t help but wonder what it means moving forward. Luckily, it’s so easy being with each other that taking it day by day doesn’t seem half bad | wc 1.1k

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[best enjoyed in order, but not required! ♡]

.・゜゜・ ・゜゜・．

If it’s one thing shy!eddie knows well, it’s labels. They’ve been forced on him all his life. But this—whatever has blossomed between the two of you—he can’t quite pin down. And the universe sure as hell isn’t gonna step in and do it for him. For once, the cards are in his hands, and he doesn’t know what to do with them. 

Later that night, he walks you out to your car, and it’s one of the hardest things he’s ever done. The feeling of your lips still lingers on his. He’s never wanted anyone to stay as badly as right now.

Nevertheless, you hug him one last time, and he gets the door for you without second thought because he’s always done so. Even before you made butterflies a permanent fixture in his stomach. 

“Thanks, Teddy,” you lilt as you settle behind the wheel. “Can I call you that?” You’re teasing, but only partly.  His blush is evident in the glow of the streetlamps that illuminate Forest Hills against the night. 

He hasn’t heard that nickname since it came past his mother’s lips when he was a boy. He smiles a little, lifts a shoulder as if he’s more indifferent than he is. “If you want," he says. 

You’re quiet for a beat, then cutely scrunch your nose up at him. “But what do you want?”  Eddie blinks like he hasn’t heard the likes of this question in a long while. 

“You can call me Teddy,” he decides. You could call him Edward for all he cared. Whatever you wanted, really. That’s when he realizes he’s in trouble. The best kind. 

Shy!Eddie who can’t pinpoint the exact moment it happens, but realizes he’s begun to pay more mind to the way he looks—undoubtedly because of you. One morning at 7 AM, his Uncle Wayne knocks on the bathroom door. Inside, he hears the startled sound of a tub of hair gel tumbling into the sink. “Shit—I’ll be out in a second!” 

An affectionate smirk pulls at Wayne's lips. “Guess I'll use it outside like a dog,” he jokes.  

Later that day, as Mrs. O’Donnell lectures the class, Eddie feels you poke the end of your pencil into the side of his ribcage from where you sit behind him. The way he straightens makes you smile, and he shoots a discreet glance over his shoulder to see what you want. Except your gaze is cast out the window in feigned innocence. 

Three minutes later, he curls in on himself as the ticklish pokes start up again. This time, you pass him a ripped piece of notebook paper that features your neat, bubbly handwriting: hi, handsome ;) 

All Eddie can do is helplessly flush with warmth. 

A couple weeks later, as you’re painting your nails on your best friend’s bedroom floor, you think aloud, “Me and Eddie.” Robin peers down at you from her bed, where she absentmindedly braids a strand of her hair. “I think we’re a sure thing.” 

Her brows lift in surprise. “So you’re official?” 

You purse your lips in consideration. “No, we’re just…us.” 

Robin frowns at first, but eventually nods because, maybe, that’s all love was ever meant to be. Unadulterated in the sense that it could never be bogged down to titles and definitions. 

“Sweet,”  she finally says. 

You nod and begin to smile at the thought of him. The way he gives you his full attention whether you’re talking about life at large or your day. The way he bites back his own goofy smile whenever he unintentionally makes you laugh—which happens all the time. The way he’s welcomed you into his little world.

You’re remiss that you weren’t braver sooner. 

“Yeah,” you agree in a wistful exhale. It is pretty sweet. You raise your hand to gently blow over the sheer pink polish coated on your fingertips. 

Like clockwork, the dismissal bell sounds to denote the end of yet another school day. A few more months, and you'll be kissing these stuffy, bustling halls goodbye.

Eddie catches up with you at your locker and asks if you’d like to go hang out with him in the woods behind the school. It’s nice out today. 

You narrow your eyes as you shut the metal door. “So was this your plan all along? Get my guard down so you can lure me into the woods and go in for the kill?” 

He knows you’re joking, but his answer is sincere anyway. His big bambi eyes dark and gooey as he says, “Never. No way.”

There’s a picnic table nestled amidst the tall trees, as it turns out. A calming breeze glides through the branches and rustles their leaves. Eddie sits first and expects you to choose the bench across from him, but you sit on the same side. You want to be near him. He can’t complain.

A comfortable silence settles between you that he eventually breaks. “Used to come out here a whole lot," he says. “I’d write songs or sit and listen to music," he lists. "Enjoy the scenery…” his words fade as his eyes settle back on you. There’s a tender depth to your gaze. 

He smiles a bit self-consciously, but he's not exactly embarrassed. More so hyperaware because you always make him feel so seen. “What?” he murmurs. 

Without a single word, you scoot closer to press your lips to his. One of his hands rise to cup your cheek, his thumb brushing across your skin. This kiss is different. Deeper. Unlike your usual affectionate pecks in every way. 

Warmth kindles in your stomach when his initial hesitancy dissipates. As he finds his way, his lips move sure and easy against your own. Plush and warm. You can feel his gentle exhales puff from his nose, and against your own desire, you slowly begin to pull away to ensure all this is alright.  

But Eddie’s okay. He’s more than okay. For the first time since he’s known you, he feels the soft tug of frustration in his chest. Except it’s not rooted in irritation. It’s rooted in want. 

When he leans back in, cheeks flushed and dark eyes hopeful, you let his lips just barely graze yours before you pull away. He tries again, and you lean back once more, flustered and excited by his newfound boldness. 

You place a gentle hand on his chest and chuckle despite yourself. “Easy, Teddy,” it’s a honeyed warning that carries no bite. 

“C’mere,” he insists, a pout on his face even though it's threatened by a smile. "Wanna kiss you." His voice drops low and shy, like it's a secret.

When you giggle, butterflies aflutter in your stomach, he takes it upon himself to hold you steady and kiss the sweet sound from your lips. 

The two of you are a sure thing, indeed.

Thanks for reading! All likes, comments, and reblogs are appreciated ♡

a/n making this a series because I can't get enough of these two. Stay tuned for the formal announcement!

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DAY BY DAY MASTERLIST

[koyagifs]

EP. 18 Investing is not something you do lightly

984k views | 59k likes | WC: 0.8k | 9th member au

deal?

SALT ROOM

" The loser of rock, paper, scissors hits the slate with an egg?" Wooyoung said, looking at everyone.

You were quick to shake your head no, being known to lose the game every single time. " nope! not a chance."

Wooyoung glared at you as San was quick to grab an egg and smash is against Wooyoung head. You cup your mouth, stifling a laugh as Wooyoung slowly took the piece of shell out of his hair.

" ah~ way to scientific!" Hongjoong said.

San was smiling widely, as Seonghwa looked at Wooyoung with wide smile as well. " like hitting a rock with an egg."

Seonghwa took a glance at the ATM before he looked back at the group. " can i asked a question?"

You nodded your head, sipping from Mingi's cup as you looked at Seonghwa.

"why is the atm machine here?"

You looked back, confusion struck on your face. " when did the atm get here?"

" isn't that going to break?" Jongho asked.

" it's too much of a box to call it a machine," Mingi said.

You chuckled, shuffling over towards San and Wooyoung as you opened your mouth up for some egg. San smiled at you, pushing Wooyoung out of the way to feed you.

Walking back out to the main room, Mingi yelling mom you noticed the hot pink cover. You tugged on San as you giggled, seeing Wooyoung make his way towards the fake mom.

You were quick to make your way to Wooyoung, standing above the two as Wooyoung continued to play along. " mom, you didn't shave."

You laughed, as Wooyoung continued to whine. " i told you to shave!"

" mom, what happen?" You asked, trying your best to not keep laughing.

' Mom ' looked at you, trying to not break character, " every time you see me, you always ask for money."

" your mom sounds very rough today," San said laughing.

" it's because i just woke up!" 'mom' said.

you giggled, as Yunho made a joke causing an outburst from mom to come out. You got up, leaning against Yeosang as he clapped.

Your eyes widen with delight, smirking at the camera as you rushed towards Wooyoung side. Clinging onto him, he smiled at you widely as San took over the other side.

" oppa~ will you buy me a snack?" you asked.

He nodded his head, " of course! Anything for my princess,"

You squealed, telling him what you wanted before quickly leaving. You followed Jongho towards the ice room where Mingi was holding the door open.

When Yunho opened the door, you choked on your drink as he laughed at you. He was holding the metal detector as he was staring at Hongjoong make ice ducks.

" you can shave the ice. you see the ice on the wall? you can scrape that off too," the director said.

You looked at Yeosang as he looked at you smiling at you. You both stood up, " really?"

" yeah, we got permission."

You rushed towards Yeosang as he spoke towards the cameras. " now i can so what i always wanted to do!"

You burst out laughing at Yeosang scrapping at the wall with his card, still being side by side ignoring the chaos happening behind you. That was until you felt the back of your shirt get's tugged and the sudden coldness running down your back.

You gasped loudly, your body twisting as you turned to Yunho with betrayal in your eye. Yunho was quick to go back to his corner beside Jongho who was smiling at the scene.

" Jeong Yunho!" you cried out.

You held your hand up, covering the very clear finger you were giving Yunho as he was laughing. Huffing you decided to target Mingi, who began to scream. Without realizing it, you had began even more chaos and you took this chance to leave the room when Jongho had snuck out.

You rushed towards the restaurant, pulling out the wons in your pocket as you ordered 8 seaweed soup. Bowing at the lady as she began to bring out the trays, you say down at the end of the table, the boys coming in one by one.

" oh, it's 8 euros?"

You shook your hand, " oppa's i already paid."

Hongjoong and Seonghwa looked at you in shock, " huh? When did you do that?"

You smiled cheekily, " i got here first!"

They hummed, grabbing their tray as Mingi sat beside you. " thank you yn~"

You hummed, opening your mouth for Mingi to feed you some of his food. The table soon turned silent, everyone enjoying their meal as Mingi and Yunho took turns feeding you off their plate.

You stared at the boys playing the game, sneakily getting out of it because you paid for the meal. When Jongho slurp on his drink, you bursted out laughing.

Next episode: drunk yn is very different!

taglist: @soso59love-blog @misteez @yeosionist @bbokarismeow @moonlitcelestial @sunnysidesins

[brainddeadd]

The Proposal

When a sudden immigration issue threatens to deport you back to Canada, you devise a plan: convince your charming but infuriating neighbor, Quinn Hughes, to marry you. What starts as a wild scheme leads to unexpected feelings, hilarious misadventures, and a deeper connection.

this was originally going to be a series but my brain went pooft

Your life is officially a disaster. All it took was a single letter from immigration. Due to some bureaucratic nightmare, your visa is expiring, and you’re suddenly at risk of being deported back to Canada—a place you haven’t lived in years. Your job, your friends, your entire life is here now. You pace your apartment, chewing on your lip, heart racing with panic. There has to be a solution, some way to stay.

That’s when the idea hits you—crazy, reckless, and entirely illegal.

You need someone to marry you.

But not just anyone. It has to be someone local, single, and trustworthy enough to go along with this scheme. Unfortunately, your options are limited. And then you think of your neighbor: Quinn Hughes.

The thought makes you groan aloud. Sure, he’s gorgeous—with his sharp jawline, quiet charm, and infuriating smirk—but the two of you are more like frenemies than anything else. Your relationship consists mostly of snarky comments in passing and the occasional argument over his terrible parking. But desperate times call for desperate measures. And besides, if anyone can convincingly pretend to hate you while still marrying you, it’s Quinn.

The Proposal:

Later that evening, you find yourself standing outside Quinn’s door, chewing nervously on the inside of your cheek. The moment he opens it, dressed in a hoodie and gym shorts, you blurt out, “I need you to marry me.”

Quinn blinks, stunned. “What?”

You take a deep breath. “It’s not what it sounds like. It’s just… immigration messed up my visa, and if I don’t fix this soon, I’m going to be deported. The fastest way to stay is if I marry a U.S. citizen.”

He leans against the doorframe, arms crossed, a hint of amusement in his dark eyes. “And you thought I was the best option?”

“Yes,” you say, trying to sound confident. “I mean, you’re already in my life. Sort of. And it’s not like you have a girlfriend or anything, so…”

Quinn’s lips twitch with the beginnings of a smile. “You do realize this is illegal, right?”

“Only if we get caught,” you say quickly. “Look, it’s just a piece of paper. We don’t have to actually act married. We just have to fool immigration long enough for me to get my green card, and then we can… annul it or whatever.”

He studies you for a moment, as if weighing the insanity of your request. “What’s in it for me?”

You rack your brain for something to offer. “I’ll stop giving you shit about your parking.”

Quinn chuckles softly. “That’s it?”

“And… I’ll buy you coffee every morning,” you add, desperate.

He lets out a long, exasperated sigh, rubbing the back of his neck. “You owe me. Big time.”

Your heart leaps. “So that’s a yes?”

Quinn shrugs, looking both amused and resigned. “Guess I’ve got nothing better to do.”

Hilarious Misadventures Ensue:

From the moment Quinn agrees, things spiral into a series of chaotic events. You and Quinn suddenly have to act like the perfect couple, and it’s harder than you anticipated—mainly because the two of you are polar opposites.

1. The Wedding: You decide on a quick courthouse wedding to make it official. There’s no fanfare—just you in a white sundress and Quinn looking mildly annoyed in a button-down shirt.

“I feel like we should say something meaningful,” you whisper as the judge prepares to officiate.

Quinn smirks. “Like what? ‘Til deportation do us part’?”

Despite yourself, you snort, and the judge gives you both a strange look. You manage to keep a straight face just long enough to exchange vows—if you can even call them that—and sign the marriage license.

“Well, Mrs. Hughes,” Quinn teases after, flashing a grin. “How does it feel to be married?”

“Like I made a huge mistake,” you reply with a playful glare.

2. The Fake Instagram Life: To sell the story, you both agree to post a few couple-y photos on social media. The problem? Neither of you are exactly Instagram-savvy.

Quinn’s first attempt is a blurry photo of the two of you holding coffee cups. “What’s wrong with it?” he asks, frowning as you groan.

“It looks like a hostage situation, Quinn.”

After several failed attempts, you finally manage a decent photo: you sitting on his lap, laughing as he pretends to kiss your cheek. It’s fake, of course. Completely fake. But the way his hand rests on your waist feels a little too real.

3. Immigration Interview Disaster: The immigration interview is the real test, and it’s an absolute disaster.

The officer asks simple questions: “How did you two meet?” “What’s Quinn’s favorite food?”

You both answer at the same time, giving completely different answers.

“Spaghetti,” you say.

“Chicken tenders,” Quinn mutters.

You shoot him a look. “Since when?”

“I told you that last week,” he whispers back, exasperated.

The officer narrows her eyes, and you and Quinn exchange panicked glances. Somehow, you scrape through the interview, but not without promising each other to actually learn more about each other next time.

Feelings Get Complicated:

What started as a transactional arrangement begins to shift. The longer you spend time together—watching TV on his couch, cooking dinner side by side, sharing space in ways that feel dangerously domestic—the more the lines blur between what’s fake and what isn’t.

One rainy night, you find yourself curled up against Quinn on the couch, his arm casually draped around your shoulders. Your heart pounds in your chest, and you wonder if he feels it too.

“This was supposed to be fake,” you whisper, almost afraid to say it aloud.

Quinn’s hand brushes your arm, sending shivers down your spine. “Yeah,” he murmurs. “But it doesn’t feel fake anymore.”

You look up at him, your breath hitching as his gaze drops to your lips. Before you can overthink it, he leans in, capturing your mouth in a soft, tentative kiss. It’s not rushed or rehearsed—it’s real. And it’s everything you didn’t know you wanted.

The Inevitable Realization:

Over the next few weeks, everything changes. The fake touches—his hand on your back, your fingers laced through his—become second nature. Quinn starts leaving his toothbrush next to yours. You start falling asleep in his bed more often than not.

And then, one morning, it hits you. You’re not faking anymore.

You sit across from him at breakfast, watching as he scrolls through his phone, a lazy smile tugging at his lips. It’s terrifying, how easy this has become.

“What are you thinking?” Quinn asks, glancing up from his phone.

You smile softly. “That maybe this wasn’t such a crazy idea after all.”

Quinn’s eyes crinkle with amusement, but there’s warmth there too—something deeper, more genuine. “Guess we’ll have to stay married, then.”

You laugh, reaching across the table to take his hand. “Looks like you’re stuck with me, Hughes.”

And for the first time, he doesn’t seem to mind at all.

[temporarywelcome]

12 Fics of Christmas Day 5 - Kyle Spencer

"Arts and Crafts"

Words: 1k

Summary: Kyle loves making Christmas gifts, going a little overboard with making presents for reader. She begins to feel neglected, unaware of what he is doing.

____

Everyone knew this guy was whipped. 

Kyle Spencer, the frat leader who was actually the world’s biggest sweetheart, was sat in the back of Tulane’s library with scissors and construction paper, carefully looking at a YouTube tutorial as he attempted to make his lovely girlfriend another unique Christmas card. The fourth he has made. 

It’s not like he had messed up on the others. He just planned on giving her four Christmas cards, or maybe even more, depending on how much time he can find for himself till Christmas Day. 

He loved giving gifts, and he especially loved giving them to his girlfriend, so he didn’t mind being hunched over a table with his brows furrowed, concentrated on the video while his homework stayed stuffed in the bottom of his bookbag for him to deal with later. Expertly cutting a straight line, Kyle paused when he saw a notification pop up on his phone. A call. From Y/N!

Setting down the scissors and paper, Kyle answered, “Hey, baby! What’s up?” he noticed another student glaring at him for being loud, causing him to flush. ‘Sorry’, he mouthed. 

“Just finished up with a class,” she chirped in response.

“Ah, anatomy, right?” he asked, now whispering. He had her schedule memorized at this point. 

“Yep! I was wondering if we could go to the cafe together?” 

Kyle pursed his lips, looking down at the project in front of him. He already had the glue gun ready and running, a mess of little knick knacks around him. “Um, how about another day?” he asked, biting his bottom lip. 

Y/N took a moment to respond, “Oh… Yeah, that’s fine! I’ll talk to you later?”

“I’ll talk to you later, baby! I’ll call you, promise,” he assured her, “I love yooooou,”

“Love you too, babe,” she laughed quietly before hanging up. 

Putting the YouTube tutorial back on, Kyle set down his phone and went back to work, determined to make the perfect card for his girlfriend. 

____

With a deep sigh, Y/N slipped her phone back into her bag, a slightly annoyed expression forming on her face. She and Kyle haven’t had a proper date in two weeks, and she was starting to get worried.  Was she doing something wrong? Or maybe he was just busy studying for finals that were coming up for the semester?

Or…

Was it possible Kyle found someone new?

No, of course not. He was a sweetheart, and everyone could agree. If he had lost feelings for her, he would tell her. As nervously and gently as possible, but he would tell her. He wouldn’t leave her hanging. 

So what the fuck was going on?

Maybe he was beginning to realize he didn’t want her anymore? He was trying to figure out how to tell her?

She didn’t know what it was, but she was beginning to feel a bit insecure. Okay, very insecure. But she won’t ever admit it. Never. The only thing that kept her a little at ease was that Kyle was missing frat parties too, so whatever he was busy with must actually be important. 

Unless he was making sure his new bitch was a secret.

Really, Y/N? Are you hearing yourself? This is Kyle Spencer! He could do no wrong. You bagged the sweetest guy on the planet. 

She was still worried.

____

Another week had passed, and Kyle was seated on his bed, humming to himself as he carefully built a Lego set of flowers, another thing to add to the growing collection of Christmas presents he had ready for Y/N. The set came with a pot and everything, the flowers in her favorite colors. It was perfect. 

A knock sounded on his door and he looked up, “Yeah, Mom?”

His mother slowly opened the door, “Y/N is here to see you,” she told him, glancing at the Legos he was diligently working on. 

He bit his bottom lip, looking at the little pieces he had thrown around, “Um, tell her I’m not feeling well, please,”

“She’s right behind me,” her mom deadpanned, and he awkwardly looked away, clearing his throat as his mother stepped aside to reveal a pissed off Y/N. 

“Shit,” Kyle mumbled to himself. Noticing Y/N storm off, he scrambled to his feet, slipping past his mother and down the stairs, “Y/N Baby, wait! Come on!”

“Fuck off,” she grumbled over her shoulder, marching straight out to the door. 

He sighed, following her down the porch and grabbing her wrist, “Can you at least listen to me?”

“You wanted your mom to lie to me and tell me you’re sick while you’re fucking around with fucking Legos?” she snapped, whirling towards his direction, “We haven’t had a proper date in three weeks, Kyle! Three fucking weeks! What the hell have you been doing this whole time?! Are literal Legos more important than your girlfriend?” 

“No no no,” he placed his hands on her shoulders, looking into her eyes, “Those Legos are for you, babe,”

“...what?”

Kyle chuckled softly, resting his forehead on hers, “This is our first Christmas together so you don’t really know how I am with that but… I go a bit crazy. I’ve been making you presents all month,” 

She paused, eyes darting around as she processed his words. He was making her presents. All month. That sounds like a whole ass load of presents. “All month?” she repeated.

“Yes, babe. You thought I was ignoring you for shits and giggles?” he laughed, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, “Nah, you just kept calling me at the worst times,”

“Oh…” Y/N trailed off, “I feel stupid,”

He shook his head, “No, you had every right to be suspicious. I should have made more time for you so it wasn’t so obvious something was up. I’m sorry. How about I take you out right now, babe?” 

A small smile formed on her face and she nodded, giggling as he placed a soft kiss to her nose, “Okay,”

___

Tags:

@envy-of-greed @bohnerrific69 @loveofcherry

[fabdante]

my first piece colored for the @zutaracoloringbook !

the lines were done in clip studio paint, the color in marker, colored pencil, gel pen, and paint pen. with some minor digital touch ups after scanning.

you can color this piece for yourself for free! it's in this years @zutaracoloringbook , go pick yourself up a copy! there's tons of beautiful pieces in it including this one, all for free!

under the cut, for anyone interested, im going to ramble a lot about the process of this one because i just have a lot of thoughts asdfghjk the tldr is: this is not at all how i expected this piece to look, i fell asleep working on it at one point which is just wild to me, and 'ooo pretty colors'

i've sat on this one for a little bit and im still not sure how i feel about it? i like it but it's also not at all how i expected the color for this piece to look asdfghj

i originally thought the palette would be darker but after printing the piece i realized, given the lines were not as dark as they would have been if they'd been drawn traditionally, that i'd drown out the lines with that color scheme.

i also made a lot of little mistakes ranging from using colors darker then i wanted for shading to at one point Literally Falling Asleep While Coloring With Black Marker, thus leaving a black spot on the page that I then had to work around.

the paper also was a double edged sword. i did not print on marker paper or artist paper, which usually is not an issue with me. i know most marker artists will strangle me for saying this, but i have never drawn on marker paper? like ever? i taught myself how to use marker on mixed media paper and i have rarely used marker paper since. i've just never felt a need? contrary to what people have said, i've never seen any like abnormal wear and tear on my markers doing this and i, personally, just accept that markers are going to bleed. it's not my enemy it's just part of the medium. it's what markers do. they're a wet medium even on paper made for wet mediums they will bleed out and often bleed through a little bit. i learned how to work around that and use it to my advantage. this paper however, the markers didn't bleed at all? and they dried so fast it made maintaining an even texture and blending like i normally do a challenge. it just didn't have a lot of give? HOWEVER the color pay off was CRAZY like the colors are so vivid and bright and rich. like, i made my own color chart for my markers on index cards and then i would often test the colors on scrap paper of the same paper to confirm what the colors going to look like but when i would use colors on the piece itself they were always darker, richer, brighter, and just all around way more vivid. which makes the piece very nice to look at, admittedly asdfghjk. so paper pros: fantastic color pay off like crazy color pay off, paper cons: I Don't Know How To Blend.

for anyone wondering why i didn't print on marker paper: firstly, i don't have any this size. secondly, marker paper tends to be pretty thick and not super malleable so i didn't think it'd be safe for my printer. likewise, i didn't think any of my other paper would be either. so i decided to do what i did last year which was use a fancy paper stock i had that was printer safe for my printer paper so it's not just regular thin computer paper.

some of these technical issues i blame on being out of practice, i haven't worked in marker for a minute and this piece involving such large scale blending was a bit ambitious especially on unfamiliar paper (learning how to blend with markers i find is just a lot of practice with your particular markers to know how they behave while also knowing your paper). but im also just confused because i feel like the paper behaved better when i used it last year and with my self portraits asdfghj im wondering if i just printed this on the wrong side? more testing is in order before i work on my next two pieces dfghjklfghjk

so, anyway, i might try to color this one again because i don't know how satisfied i am with it. like, i like it, but also it just doesn't feel correct. i might do it digitally or i might do it traditionally, we'll see. but im not going to try again until i finish the other two i need to color. i think this stems from the fact that i just feel like the palette was meant to be different then the one i ended up with so it just still feels incomplete to me. we'll see how i feel, though, when i finish the other two.

anyway, if anyone read all of that, thank you for coming to my ted talk.

[narastories]

trying out Obsidian, my first setup, my opinions, etc.

Okay, so this is going to be a long post. Earlier this week I decided to give Obsidian a go to see if it would work for my longer writing projects. I heard some of my mutuals use it and others would like to see my setup, so I'm making a post about what I learned so far. I downloaded it three days ago so I'm sure things will change, but this is where I am right now.

I'm shy about my WIPs so what you see there is the beginning of heart worth the trouble. But hopefully, this lets you see my folder structure and the links in the notes.

My wishlist and how I got here

I recently wrote a rambly post about writing software which got way more notes than I expected (bc the lovely @barbex reblogged it <3). After I made that post, I started using Focus Writer (again a recommendation from the writing discord) for my discovery writing in March. After more than two weeks of heavy use, I realized I needed a little bit more than that (but it's a great program).

Initially, I tried combining it with Wavemaker bc I liked that when I played around with it, but that completely pissed me off, bc it turns out it's just not compatible with other things I'm using. Like Firefox. -.-

Still, this whole ordeal made me narrow down what I really want and need from a piece of writing software at this moment. I think it's a good idea to start with such a wishlist if you are looking for a new software. Here is mine:

free

no account required, not stored on someone else's cloud, I can back it up wherever I want instead

Linux support

widely compatible file formats

focus mode, where it's full-screen, and ideally highlights the paragraph you are working on

I can make it look nice and calming on the eyes currently all I want is a cream paper background look, and a friendly monospace font changed to brown or something

clicky keyboard/typewriter noises - luckily I got this covered by Mechvibes already!

something like the card feature in Wavemaker, where I can have individual notes and choose to display them on the side. this might sound like it conflicts with the focus mode but I just want to have the option to have some notes without having to vomit them into the draft

easy to rearrange the order of the scenes

wordcount obviously

Tall order? Weird order? Maybe.

I think the most important is to figure out is how you work as a writer and find tools that match that. This is just honestly what is important for me right now.

It seems like Obsidian might just do this.

it's free

doesn't require an account

text is stored locally in markdown files

works on Linux I'm using the AppImage if you want to know

can be integrated with Github for backup & sync

tons of customization options to achieve the rest of my requirements

The Basics

If you want to use Obsidian for note-taking (or for writing fic but you're not very picky about the how), you can pretty much just download it, pick a pretty theme if you want and you're good to go. It's that easy. I promise it's not as hard as people make you believe.

This is a local-first software, which I love. However, this also means if you are not used to storing your writing locally, you need to get into the habit of backing your things up because if something happens to your computer, there is no copy of your files on the web.

That said, you can pay I think 4USD/month for the subscription and then you'll have an account, and your files will get synched to other devices, and you can restore your files. (And remember, if something is free and doesn't have ads and you have cloud storage space you didn't have to pay for... then you are the product and the company is paying for it with your data. So the fact that this is paid is actually a very good thing.)

The file structure works pretty much 1:1 as your file explorer btw

If you create a folder on the sidebar, it will create a folder on your computer.

If you create a note on the sidebar, it will create a text file on your computer.

If you drag the note into the folder on the sidebar, it will put the text file in the folder on your computer.

Each note is stored as a separate markdown file. Markdown files are widely compatible with various software so that's great. Also, you can even just rename the file to have .txt extension instead of .md extension and literally every text editor will open it for you (you will lose the formatting tho). The opposite also works. If you have a note in .txt format, you can copy it into your Obsidian folder, rename the extension to .md and it will appear in Obsidian.

That all makes it very easy to import things and switch between files to edit them.

There is only one downside to this that I found. You know how in your file explorer you can drag and drop files into folders but you can't drag and drop files to change their order? Well, your Obsidian side-bar is the same. You can choose to order them based on the name, last modified, etc. But if you want custom order, I suggest you number your notes and folders.

I feel like we're not that used to this anymore but again, this is literally like a file explorer, so it's not a big deal imo.

Another important basic concept is linking your notes. You can just right-click a piece of text and link a note, drag and drop the note into your other note, or do [[Note]] whatever you like. Then you can quickly access the other note by clicking on it, or see a preview while hovering over it (If you turned that feature on). Linking notes is also how you get those cool graph views.

I just wanted to mention all of this bc I feel like all the videos I came across on Obsidian intimidate people into thinking it's more complex than that lol

Appearance

I go a little crazy about visual optimization if you give me a chance. You can change a couple of simple things out the box. Light/dark theme, change the font, etc. I'm using a font called Code Saver for the editor (regular is free for personal use).

Then, there are the themes you can download. There are so many awesome ones! I'm using one called Underwater right now bc I liked the rounded edges.

Most themes come with a light/dark version. But if you download the Style Settings plugin, you might unlock more easy-to-customize options. It depends on the theme what you see there. The one I'm using has a couple of built-in colorways. I went with the "rose pine dawn" option and then I switched out some colors in the color pickers. If you want to mess with the colors I highly recommend finding some hex color palettes online, they make your life so much easier. You can find colors that look good together and look up a color and find lighter/darker versions instead of trying to blindly click around on the color picker.

For this theme, you can also add a background image if you want. (If you really want to make it look like Focus Writer for example ;)

Plugins

These are the plugins I'm using right now.

GitHub Sync: This is what I use to sync my progress and back up my files. I started with this before anything else, but I'm not going to go into what I did bc I don't want to make this post even more complicated. If you have a specific question about it, pls feel free to ask me :)

Focus Mode: This is a full-screen mode, very nice for writing

Stille: Dims everything but the active paragraph, again, very nice for writing. I found that the combination of these two plugins work best for me, but there are others like Typewriter Mode that can do both (I couldn't turn down the vignette mode on that one tho and it was annoying me)

Smart Typography: switches the straight quotation marks for curly ones

This is how it looks with Focus Mode and Stiille both on.

And lastly, a bit of a disappointment: Longform. This is the plugin that everyone seems to recommend for longer writing projects in Obisdian. Basically what it does is it can compile your individual notes into one file, and allows you to move the order of them freely, unlike the normal Obsidian sidebar. Here is a pretty good video on it.

Unfortunately, this plugin gets absolutely wrecked by synchronizing to another device.

From what I gathered, this happens regardless of what method of synching you use, meaning it happens even with the paid synching feature. You can read about this more here btw. It's a community plugin so I'm not going to be mad at the creators for not fixing this, however this means it just doesn't work for me.

If it worked on the one computer where I originally set it up, just not on the other, I would be fine with it. But I set it up on my Linux, and after I synched to my Windows, the scene list disappeared from both. (Not the actual files! It just doesn't get recognized as a Longform project anymore so it pretty much becomes useless lol)

So, I just decided to create the the same structure with folders and notes. Right now, this is a discovery draft and I don't have chapters. But I'm making a folder for an "Arc", and put the numbered scenes into them. I'm also making separate notes that I can link with stuff I want to remember/work on.

At the moment I don't require an extensive wiki where I note what each of the characters like to have for breakfast and such. But you can absolutely do that with Obsidian. You can create a folder for Characters, Worldbuilding, whatever you want, really. Put images there, links both internal and on the web and just go wild if you want.

Obviously, without Longform I will need to compile the files into one at the end by a different method, like copy-paste into one, turn them into .txt, and concatenate from the terminal, you know, depending on your comfort level xD. It will probably include more work than with this plugin, but it's not like you don't go through your manuscript about a million times anyways, am I right?

Word Count

Lastly, mentioning the wordcount options bc they are important

there is a built-in wordcount, about which the common agreement is that it's not very good lol

because of this there is a community plugin called Better Wordcount, which is self-explanatory. If you want to get the total word count, you can right-click the top folder of your project and ask it to count the words for you.

Longform also has a wordcount and it will display it like words of the scene/total words of the project if you are using that

if you don't want to have three different word counts displayed I recommend you only have one of these active (:

That's where I am right now. If you have read all this to the end, you're awesome, and also we both should stop procrastinating and go write instead :P But if you also use Obsidian for writing and have cool tips pls let me know xx

[kulemiwrites]

Akira Nishikiyama | KURO ii

Part: ii of ii (KURO, Shiro series) Part one can be found here. Genre: Angst, Romance, SMUT Rating: 18+ Word count: 9k, sowwy (^人^) Character(s): Akira Nishikiyama, fem!Reader

Warning: This part is not only almost double the length of the previous one but it's also alot heavier. It's angsty as hell but also, just sorta intense emotionally. (At least, that's my interpretation. If I did my job right, ya know jhdsbfs) Anyway, you've warned 😘

Note: Technically a part of Repost Sunday but Kuro, Shiro is one of my all time favorites of anything I've written. So, when I was going back to proofread, I noticed some things I wanted to do differently. So, it's mostly the same but some paragraphs have been heavily modified, added or removed entirely 🤭 I couldn't help myself!

Read on AO3

He was slow in his stroll, unbuttoning his white coat and loosening his tie. Your eyes met his for the first time in nearly a decade and you felt butterflies. It was then that you realized that there was no more denying it, he had changed.

Your fingertips lightly traced the edges of the flat white box, careful not to leave fingerprints. It was alarming in size– your thighs were hidden beneath the width of it. Your eyes studied the golden emblem that was etched into the box as your fingers idly toyed with an end of the black satin bow. There was something awfully familiar about it but no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t place it. Finally, you tugged the ribbon and it elegantly unraveled almost perfectly off the sides of the box. 

Plucking the remaining corner of ribbon away, your nail gently scraped against the gold, making you shudder- the sound and feeling almost as unpleasant as dragging your nails against a chalkboard. 

There it was commanding your attention once more but still, you were at all loss. You were certain you were unfamiliar with the brand.

It definitely wasn’t something you’d find in the shops near your small town and if the packaging was anything to go by, the price tag was nothing to sneeze at. That, and… having been a gift from Nishikiyama-- Well, that just confirmed your suspicions. 

“One… Two…Three…” you whispered, lifting away the top, revealing a sheet of gold gift tissue paper and a piece of cardstock, the size of a standard business card. It was a note:

In case you’ve forgotten, 

Kamurocho is chilly this month.

-Akira

You smiled, removed the tissue and you couldn’t believe your eyes. Just one look and it suddenly came rushing back. 

“How could he have…” you muttered, removing the beautiful coat that you’d been eyeballing for months now.

You got monthly catalogs from all over the place. You enjoyed sifting through them, highlighting the pretty things you liked most but you never made much of an effort to actually order them. You’d leave stacks of catalogs folded open on the table never to be peeked at again and once the next month’s issues came in, you’d toss the old ones out with the trash.

It was an endless cycle but what could you say? You were a creature of habit.

It was just like Nishikiyama to spoil you with something as expensive as this; then present it in such a nonchalant way. Some things never change, you thought and you found strange comfort in that. 

You were impressed but it simultaneously made you question the evolution of your style over the years. Had it stayed the same? Did he choose it because it was something he wanted to see you in or was this just a strange coincidence? 

As you began to get yourself ready for the evening, you thought about your old friends. 

When you were kids, you never would have imagined that the years could be capable of ripping you apart so harshly. How was it that a band of friends that chose one another as family, could wind up becoming a bunch of strangers in the end? You’d known only snippets of their lives now: the news was your source when you found out about Kiryu being in prison for murder as well Nishikiyama’s reputation as a ruthless patriarch; the grapevine filled you in on Yumi’s disappearance and Yuko’s passing. 

It hurt your heart.

No, the years had not been very kind to your old friends. Sometimes, you felt guilty for growing to live such a peaceful life, at least compared to the others. Wasn’t suffering the fate of the Sunflower kids? How did that fate pass over you?

Thinking back on it all almost always gave you a headache. Nothing made any sense, or rather you refused to accept that it made any sense. The thing you questioned most though, was how you went from being Akira’s entire world to a complete no one to him overnight?

You often thought, if that was the step he needed to take to land himself where he was today and if he was happy– truly happy, then you supposed you had to accept being an unfortunate casualty.

Even so, the sentiment never changed. The yakuza life was not the path you wanted for him but it was the one he chose. You respected that, but knowing he was climbing the Tojo ladder alone, terrified you. You didn’t have to be steeped in it to know that was a lonely life to lead. The men that walked that path had to live fast and often die young. Even as a patriarch having men willing to die in his place, there was no guarantee that he’d be safe from that.

You often wished that he would upset the balance and create a new world for yakuza. You wanted him to lead the Tojo Clan someday– you knew what a title like that would mean to him but there were stipulations for your dream and one of those included becoming the longest living chairman of all time. Well respected, old and far past gray, proudly brandishing a wrinkled koi on his back as he looked down at the organization that he led to thrive for decades with zero bloodshed!

But, that wasn’t realistic and the true optics were… not great.

In the end, it was a criminal organization not an arts and crafts club. 

Denying the facts was a lot easier than facing them head on. You hoped that meeting him again would force you to accept reality as well as get the answers you’ve asked yourself for years.

You checked yourself out in the mirror and with your own nod of approval, you turned on your heels to go and meet your chauffeur.

Your gaze was laser focused on the glowing floor indicator and you flinched at the slightest bump in the ride up to the penthouse. In Nishikiyama’s letter, he’d stressed that this wasn’t a place he frequented as a way to ease your nerves. There was no need to be afraid or worry about prying eyes. He even appointed your own security detail: a chauffeur and a bodyguard whose jobs were to not let you out of their sight.

Akira put a lot more thought into ensuring your safety and privacy, more than you might have done on your own. You were grateful to him for it, of course but you couldn’t help the unease you felt next to the huge, suited gentleman who was guiding you to the rendezvous point.

He opened the door and gestured for you to enter but he didn’t pass the threshold himself.

“Here you are, Miss. The boss will arrive in exactly fifteen minutes. Shall I send someone to tend the bar while you wait?”

You shook your head, far too nervous to drink.

“Very well. The boss asks that you make yourself comfortable. He encourages you to explore the place if you’d like and of course, if you need me, I’ll be just outside this door.”

“Right… Thank you, sir.”

“No need, Miss. Please, excuse me.”

You watched the man close the door and once he was no longer in your sight, the anxiety of the inevitable set it. Maybe you’d take him up on his suggestion to peek around the place?

There weren’t words strong enough in your vocabulary to describe how impressed you were with the interior design. A little dated now, but there was a version of you that would’ve melted at the thought of calling a place like this home. You were almost envious of your ex because the more you examined it, the more it felt like a callback to a scrapbook you made some time before the split, prophesying your future living arrangements if the two of you ever decided to officially grow old together.

He was always so passive when you’d show the pages you completed to him, it left you believing that he simply wasn’t a fan of your taste. 

You wanted to delve in further but the less you could see the exit the more your head would spin. Your legs even began to stiffen from nerves. You stumbled over to the seating area, across from the bar the bodyguard mentioned and sank into the cool leather sofa.

Fifteen minutes felt much more like fifteen hours, and anxiety wasted no time in working its dark magic on you. You started to wonder if you’d made the right decision by being there. You hadn’t prepared a single word to say or thought about how to behave. You weren’t sure where you even stood emotionally: were you thrilled? Angry? Then, there was the question of how would he behave? Would he speak to you like the stranger you had become? 

You had seen fuzzy photos of his side profile in the newspaper and you could tell that he was still as handsome as you remembered. What would he think when he took a look at you?

But the most important question of all was, did he still hate you?

The sound of the twisting door knob snapped you out of your daze and made your stomach turn. You couldn’t yet see him past the entryway but you heard his shoes click against the floor tiles. 

Click, clack…. Click, clack….. Click, clack…

You quickly shot to your feet and immediately debated if that was the right move. 

How do you greet a patriarch? Was there protocol? Does that protocol extend to you as a civilian, and ex-girlfriend of said patriarch? 

You straightened out the cuffs of your coat and the hem of your dress with shaky hands and your tongue flailed in your cottonmouth. Then, you hid your hands in the pockets as you took a single step forward to meet him at the entryway.

His deep voice rang through the open space and sent chills down your spine, “Sit. It’s fine.” he said, voice deliberately softening on ‘fine’ as if trying to quickly amend for the harshness of ‘sit’.

“O-oh, okay.” you stuttered, jelly legs finally giving way and awkwardly flopping you down to the sofa.

He was slow in his stroll, unbuttoning his white coat and loosening his tie. Your eyes met his for the first time in nearly a decade and you felt butterflies. It was then that you realized that there was no more denying it, he had changed. It was in everything from the sharpness of his gaze to the pomade in his hair, the rolling swagger in his gait and even his choice of black gator oxfords.

He shrugged off the coat and draped it over the back of the living chair he sat on the arm of, cross-legged as he stared at you in silence.

Thick, deafening silence.

And in searching his eyes for his next move, your vision instead grew blurry at the painful realization that you could no longer read him. You bowed your head as the tears raced down your cheeks.

Blank– perfectly expressionless, he watched on as you choked back a frustrated sob and when you could finally muster the strength to meet his eye again, he simply pointed at the end table holding a box of tissues next to you.

You wondered if they were always there or had he placed them there for the purpose of this meeting. You ripped out a few to dry your tears then looked back to him with puffy eyes and a weak smile.

He stroked his chin with his thumb and for a brief, very brief moment, you witnessed a crack in the façade. There was pain– guilt even, that same micro expression of self-doubt each time he’d make you cry in the past.

“Hi.” you managed.

“...Hey.”

The thumb he used to rub his chin was now bent while he bit into the knuckle, staring down at his lap. This was not a mannerism that you were familiar with and it annoyed you that you couldn’t quite tell what it meant.

You replaced the feeling of annoyance with one of false confidence, “Well? You’ve called me all the way here… Aren’t you going to talk to me at least?”

His head jerked at your tone, his brows pinched tightly but you refused to falter under his glare. It was that that caused the look of anger on his face to dissipate into something much gentler. It wasn’t even that he was upset, he was more shocked than anything. He wasn’t used to anyone speaking to him that way anymore, especially not women. 

He briefly looked at his hands, rubbed them on his pants to wipe away the sweat collecting on his palms then he stood to his feet.

“Care for a drink?” he asked, walking to the bar without waiting for a response.

You watched him navigate the bar after he folded his shirt sleeves to the elbow, tuning out the clanging of glass as you tried to peer into his mind. Was it that the reunion was tense or had he just become a man who only lived in his head? If these were the old days you might’ve assumed that, just like you, he hadn’t planned a single word to say.

He sat your beverage on the table then sat down with his own. This time, in the actual seat.

“I wasn’t sure if you still drank that or not.” he said, nodding toward the glass filled with the last thing he remembered as your drink of choice. “But I made sure I had some for today… For you.”

Though he spoke of a thoughtful gesture, there wasn’t an ounce of sentiment in his voice. You stared at the glass quietly as he began to sip from his own.

“What’s your problem?” he asked harshly. “You saw me make it. You don’t think I put something in it, do you?”

Unbothered by his tone, you stared him down as you took a generous gulp of the drink. You licked away the droplets above your upper lip and returned it to the coaster.

“I told you that I trusted you. I’m here because I chose to trust you and I’ll continue to trust you while in your care until you prove that doing so was a mistake! Couldn’t you have just considered that maybe I’m extremely nervous?”

The corners of his mouth quivered and his eyes finally softened. You’d put him in his place twice in less than an hour. Things might have been different now but in your eyes, he saw a woman determined to see past a hardened exterior to find her old friend and former lover. The more his own butterflies flopped around, the more he struggled to keep that wall up. 

He hummed, swirling the contents of his glass with the teensiest bit of a smile. “You’re as foolish as ever…”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Putting your trust into a man you haven’t seen in nearly a decade… Just how much trouble have you walked into living so carelessly?”

“I am not careless.”

“That so?”

“I just made a conscious decision to trust you. I’d like to think you want to trust me, too.”

“I don’t trust anyone… Including you.” he said before sipping his drink, “But, you’re here because I realize how stupid I am not to.”

“Nishikiyama-san…”

There was a lengthy silence but this time, it wasn’t uncomfortable. He just smiled that same old charming smile that now felt almost nostalgic and said, “It’s Akira.”

Your lips curled into the smile he’d fallen for time and time again and it only made him grin harder. This moment took you back and you’d be lying if you said that that boyish smile didn’t threaten to take hold of your heart again.

With the ice finally broken, the two of you found yourselves talking and laughing as if time and experiences hadn’t pried you apart. It was almost as if you were temporarily transported back into that old, dinky apartment-- drinking and snickering until the break of dawn. With the slicked-back hair, you could see the corners of his eyes wrinkle with each smile and every bout of laughter.

“Refill?” he asked, taking your empty glass to the bar again.

His brown eyes mainly focused on his pour but every so often he’d sneak a peek at your expression, just as you were doing him. The corners of his mouth were still lifted in a gentle smile even as he nibbled at his bottom lip, like he did when he was lost in deep thought. 

Wow, were you quickly enamoured with him!

With him mellowed out like this, smiling so sweetly, it was easy to forget who he’d become until he’d gently placed the glass in your hands. Something about the brief physical contact made your smile fade and he could tell that it was now time to address the elephant in the room. 

“Thanks.” you said softly, tracing the rim of the glass with your thumb then muttered, “Why did things have to change?”

“Why did I have to change, you mean?”

You shook your head, “That’s not--”

A brow quirked as he stared at the liquid sloshing around the large sphere of ice, “It’s the truth though, isn’t it? We’ve gotten older but you’re pretty much the way I remember you. Of course, I’ve noticed some changes but the important things, the things that made me fall for you all those years ago… They’re still there. What could be said about me?”

“I’d say that boy is still in there somewhere. We just have to be patient and we’ll find him.”

The way you tilted your head and spoke softly made those butterflies flop like never before. He almost wanted to bend over and rub until they dissipated. 

“Please,” he said, rolling his eyes sarcastically.

“It’s true. Who do you think is pushing you to open up to me now?”

He shook his head and smirked, “That’s exactly what I mean…”

“Huh?”

“Believing in a guy like me is dangerous, ______. The way I left you, the way I hurt you, the shit I’ve done-- You can’t honestly tell me that you believe I deserve this sweet attitude you've got going on… Then, to top it all off, you’re still spitting out the corniest lines I’ve ever heard and--”

“C’mon, always with this?” 

He wanted so smile but it was immediately replaced with a much more serious expression and when he spoke, his voice sent chills down your spine.

“Watch out or I’ll fall for you again.” he said, licking his lips so sensually that you couldn’t tell if it was intentional or just odd timing. 

So you laughed it off.

“You’re still a flirt… and not a very good one.”

He hummed, setting his glass down. “Is that right? Hey… tell me something, _____. Why is it that most of my favorite memories of us are the ones when we’re reminiscing about the way things used to be? Makes me wonder if we were destined to turn out this way… Us, being each other’s past instead of the future.”

“Well, that’s very ‘glass half empty’ of you.”

His cynicism reminded you of the letter he’d sent inviting you here. 

Now, you were witnessing first hand that the optimist he used to be was long gone.

Was that what spilled blood did to a person?

“Why did you come, _____?” he asked, all sweetness from before abruptly retreating. “Answers about the last decade, I presume?”

“Of course, I want answers but that’s not--.”

“You wanted them so badly that you’d reach out to Kiryu?”

You flinched when you saw him reach for the end table near you, “Huh? H-How co--”

He opened the drawer and dropped the contents in your lap. “Like I said in my letter, I had gotten my hopes up one too many times when I thought they found you… So, I started demanding my men collect evidence when they found possible leads. That’s how I got that photo of you. They even brought back some of your mail… that letter, for instance.”

Your hands shook violently as you sorted through the pile: folded grocery lists, an unpaid bill that you misplaced, a nameless cd, a catalog and a letter from the prison Kiryu was held in. 

You frowned, and lifted the dvd, “What the hell is this?”

“Just like the photo… surveillance.” he said, “You were walking around a grocery store.”

“Oh my g--” you said, tossing it onto the table unable to hide your disgust.

Before you could begin to unpack the fact that strange men had been following you with a camera without your knowledge, you flipped the envelope and saw that it’s been opened. You didn’t recall tossing out your letters to Kiryu which meant they must have taken it shortly after it had been delivered. 

“You stole my mail and read it?!” you nearly yelled, glaring at the man who’d been casually lighting a cigarette. “Did you forget what boundaries are?!”

“That coat really does suit you….” he mumbled almost as if he meant to keep the thought to himself as he blew out a cloud of smoke.

Your eyes darted across the evidence and almost as if it called to you, you picked up the catalog and flipped to the page that had been dogeared and marked with red marker. Your stomach lurched when you recognized the emblem from the box. Part of you wanted to rip the coat off and burn it now that you were aware of how you came to acquire it, but the more important issue was that he’d read your letter from Kiryu.

“How could you?!” you shouted, fanning the envelope.

Massaging his temple, he sighed. “Putting eyes on you was already crossing a line. I asked for evidence, but I never authorized rummaging through your things… One of my men took it upon himself when he read the name of the sender. He’s been dealt with. I doubt that it makes things any better but I didn’t read it... Consider the coat an apology.”

You were almost offended by the suggestion that a damned coat could make things better, but everytime you found yourself mad about the damned coat, your mind went back to what may have been written in the letter. You stared at him, but he kept his head tilted at an angle, avoiding your scolding glance like he used to do all those years ago. He simply chewed at the inside of his lip and studied the floor until he could bring an unsteady hand up for a sip or a puff.

Finally shrugging out of the coat, mostly due to the heat of anger- you tossed it across the sofa.

“Do you regret trusting me now?” he asked. There was something bitter in his voice, not towards you but himself.

You didn’t answer and began to read the letter. Your mouth went dry as your eyes darted across the page and for a moment, you felt as if you’d drop to the floor and have a heart attack.

“‘Between the two of us, it’s clear who came to know Nishiki best… As your friend, I advise you to always trust your gut. I’m sorry but that’s the most I can offer you. Stay safe, _____.’ ”

“And what does your gut tell you?” he asked, still staring at the floor.

At one point, you had been a step away from full blown obsessiveness over Kiryu’s murder charge after you heard about it. 

Where you lived had their own yakuza factions to worry about but it wasn’t uncommon for rumors to spread about the happenings in other prefectures, especially amongst the terrified civilians. With your news sources and rumor mills intermingling, it was difficult to avoid and since it hit so close to home, you had a compulsive need to figure out the truth. 

You’d finally bitten the bullet and reached out to the source for comment and after years of back and forth, this was all you got in return? You couldn’t say you were shocked. You had your suspicions for a long time but somehow Kiryu’s lukewarm letter as well as the language in Nishikyama’s forced you to acknowledge the truth you had been trying hard to avoid. 

Admitting it aloud would disassemble the comforting lie you had been telling yourself: Akira was still the same man you fell in love with before.

“Did...Did you kill that man?” 

Though you phrased it as a question, it came out more like a shaky accusation.

Sighing another cloud of smoke, he stared at the bar top. He still couldn’t bear to look at you, all he could manage was to stare in your general direction. “You’ve always been such a smart girl... One more thing that hasn’t changed.”

Your throat tightened. You thought you needed a sip of water but it was impossible to swallow even your own saliva and your eyes began to burn with tears that you just refused to spill. 

His vague confession filled you with more questions than you could possibly process and all you could manage was, “Y-You must have had your reasons, right?”

He finally looked at you, his eyes wide with surprise. “If I did… Would that justify it for you?”

“Of course not!” You shouted. “Well, I mean--No. I-- maybe… I don’t think so? I just-- I'd like to believe that you haven’t become some sort of unhinged maniac that ends the lives of innocent people indiscriminately.”

Your words chipped away at his heart but he did his best to maintain his stoic expression.

“______, I don’t intend to mince words… If you really came for answers, I’ll give them to you. Every nitty, gritty and sordid detail. If I’m gonna come clean, I’m gonna do it right… I owe you that much. But, I can’t promise that you’ll ever be able to look at me the same. That fact alone makes me want to change my mind but if it’s what you want…” he trailed off.

“I need to know.”

In that moment, he finally tasted regret for what he’d done. If not for the lives he’d taken, then for the change in your eyes when he confessed to you. He wished that he could crawl over and kiss you one last time– lay his head in your lap as he opened up… Just like the good old days. 

But he’d burnt that bridge long ago.

He hesitated, stamped out his finished cigarette then rose to his feet. If he was going to do this, he couldn’t sit in front of you and watch your expression contort into various versions of disgust.  If this was going to be the last time he saw you, he needed your smiling face to be the clearest memory of all.

He started to pace around the sitting area, lighting another cigarette to ease his nerves through the emotional rollercoaster he was about to put the two of you through.

Nishikiyama began with the night he left, the thoughts going through his mind that pushed him to make that choice: the fear that you would’ve left him anyway now that you had a taste of what a real family was like. 

He got to how he started taking up at Serena again, even though he wanted to avoid Kiryu and Yumi, he was too lonely without you to stick to it. He wasn’t sure if it was confusion from having left you despite still being totally in love with you or not, but he began to juggle confusing feelings for Yumi again.  

Then, he began to feel as if everyone and everything was leaving him the dust. You were living with your biological family full time by that point and he hadn’t seen you in a couple years. Yumi and Kiryu were getting closer and closer by the day, even though they were never an official couple, he often felt like a third wheel even with Reina around to balance things about. 

Eventually, Kiryu did his last collection job, caught the attention of their higher ups and he was in line for his own family. That was when it was painfully obvious that he’d grown envious of Kiryu and you weren’t around to pull him back on track anymore.

He described to you the night Yumi was abducted– the night of his first kill and the deal with Kiryu. He wouldn’t wish in a million years for Yumi to have gone through what she did, but talking to you now suddenly made him wish he’d never gone to the bar that night. Not only did he lose his best friend, he’d lost you and Yumi. The only thing that kept him holding on was his sister Yuko, so he worked his ass off to afford her her medical care. 

And then, he was given his own family.

He told you about his first fleet meant to get his newly established family on track, the scam artist of a quack that cost Yuko her life and the night he almost joined her. If murderers could go where she was, that is. He described the epiphany he had as he stabbed Matsushige and he admitted that he would do it again if he had the man in front of him. From then on, he decided that since his hands were tainted with blood, he would do whatever it took to make it to the top of the Tojo Clan– by any means necessary.

You took the letter from Kiryu and used it to fan the back of your neck. You knew that this was what you asked for but just like your decision to come here, you were not prepared on what to do next. 

He finally sat down on a barstool, keeping a safe distance from you but he desperately needed you to look at him– to see the color in your eyes, proof that he hadn’t broken your heart even further. 

“I-I need fresh air.” you said, panting through heavy, uneven breaths.

“You want to leave?” he asked, taking out his cellphone. “I can have someone take you.”

“No,” you said. “I just… I can’t breathe. I need to--”

He rushed over to you, noticing that you’d begun to appear physically ill and when you stood to your feet, there was a stagger.

“Hey, take it easy.” he whispered, gently grabbing your shoulder. “Wanna go to the balcony?”

“Please, I can’t be touched by you right now.” you said, swatting him off. “Just point to where it is… I’ll find it myself.”

He did as he was told and once he heard you close the sliding door behind you, he sank back down into his original seat.

‘I can’t be touched by you right now.’

‘By you.’

‘Can’t be touched.’

‘By you…’

Fragments of that sentence played in his mind on repeat as he stared down at his hands. Over and over and over again until they no longer even sounded like words. Of all the things that could’ve come out of him coming clean to you, not once did it occur to him that you would be repulsed by the filth that would taint his hands forever.

That thought was enough to finally break the remaining control that he’d been attempting over his emotions. If not for him hearing your own wail from behind the glass door, tears would have surely fallen. 

It had been ages since he last cried, especially not over his work. So, what the hell was it about telling you now that made any difference? Genuinely what was it? Shame of disappointing you or true, actual regret?

It was making him sick to his stomach, hearing you sob so hideously and knowing that he couldn’t go out and hold you– caress you, apologize for doing this to you. After all, you ‘couldn’t be touched' by him. He’s never hated himself more than he did at this very moment.

Burying his face into his blood stained hands, he inhaled sharply and choked back a couple of sobs of his own until the door finally slid open again.  Then, he reverted back to what he remembered was his previous demeanor as you returned to your place on the sofa, running your hands along your arms. 

There was a childish part of him that inappropriately wanted to blurted out an ‘I told you so’ as you rubbed away the chill but he eyed the coat you’d tossed away and swallowed the jest.

The two of you sat in silence, not knowing what you wanted to say to the other, if anything at all. You just wanted to be near each other, despite everything that lay on the table, you seemed to want to be in the other’s presence more than anything and it confused you.

It may have been an hour that you sat like that and when you finally spoke up, his ears perked.

“I… had no idea things had gone that far.” you whispered. “Now that I do, I don’t know how to move past it.”

“I don’t expect you to.”

“The thing is, I want to. We can’t change the past, right? It doesn’t mean that I approve or agree with your actions but the least I can do for my own peace is to accept it for what it is…”

“Do you wish that I refused to tell you or at least spared some of the details.”

“I couldn’t say… Not yet, anyway.” You shrugged, “I just wonder if things could’ve been different, you know?

“I believe, the day I left you I set my fate in motion. I tried to force myself to move on from us before I was ready. Holing up in my apartment didn’t do me any favors. I went into this dark pit of despair that I didn’t see a way out of until I started going to Serena again. And i--”

“You started pining after Yumi again?” you said, not realizing you said your thought aloud until he reacted.

“I-- what? What did you just say?”

You shook your head, “Forget I said that. Sorry.”

“What did you just say?!” he shouted, no longer having it in him to maintain a cool composure.

You didn’t say anything, shocked that he’d felt so brazen as to raise his voice at you. Somehow, you couldn't find it in yourself to be afraid even now.

He shouted your name in demand of a response.

“You ended things with me to pine after Yumi!” you shouted back. “That’s what I said.”

“What the hell was I supposed to do?!” If eyes could start fires, he might have set you aflame with his glare, “You turned your back on me!”

“Excuse you?! You dumped me! I wanted you to come with me!”

He scoffed, “And do what? Live in that dump, farming rice? You should’ve stayed in Kamurocho! You should’ve been patie-- Don’t you see what I’ve got here?! You shouldn’t have preferred strangers who tossed you away to your goddamn boyfriend who you’ve known damn near your entire life! You should've stuck by me!”

“And do what? Twiddle my thumbs until you got out of prison? If it weren’t for Kiryu--”

“Don’t you fucking DARE!” Nishikiyama yelled, kicking the table in front of you as he chucked the bottle of saké he’d brought over earlier at the wall.

With a flinch, you cupped your mouth and shrieked, silently watching the saké drip down the wall and onto the floor.

“YOU don’t get to do that to me!” He angrily stomped to his feet, “not you!”

The tremble in his voice made your heart ache. You raised your hands and spoke as cautiously as you would to a volatile animal. “A-Akira, I’m not sure what you thought I was about to say but--”

“It was enough!” he shouted. “What the hell do you even know, huh?! I PROTECTED YUMI! Kiryu did NOTHING BUT CARRY THE DAMN SENTENCE!”

“Please calm down and listen to--”

You could see the wheels in his head turn but you couldn’t tell where they were leading him, just that they were going. “If you’d just stayed your ass home, none of this would’ve--”

“Are you putting the blame on me?!” You clenched your fists and finally finding the strength in your legs to stand, “YOU pulled the trigg--”

“STOP! Just stop fucking talking.” he hisses. 

He’d heard enough. This argument was going nowhere and he’d known just as well as you did that all of that vitriol was misplaced. You were feeling so much, but the things that upset you the most, you weren’t comfortable yelling at each other about. 

The two of you stood in a long, tense silence until he could calm himself and talk to you with the respect you deserved because in the end, he did have sense enough to know that none of this was truly your fault.

“I cared for Yumi, more than maybe I should have. But I lov-- I mean, I was so in love with you…” he said; great pain emphasizing his words. “Nothing came of it. I was practically invisible when Kiryu was around. You know that... “

The room fell into another lengthy silence and just as you bent your knees to sit, he dropped a bomb that comically froze you in place. If it hadn’t been so tense, he might’ve made fun of you for it.

“I was gonna marry you…”

“...what?”

He debated on where or not he should elaborate, “When you first left, I promised myself that when you came back I was gonna ask you to marry me… The punk kid I was then… had the ring for months but I could never bring myself to man up and do it. In those first three months though, I knew that I had no choice. I couldn’t stand being apart from you like that… Then, you came back proposing we move to the sticks.”

“Why didn’t you just ask me to stay?”

“And wait until you resent me for holding you back?” 

You said nothing.

“I didn’t want you to turn around and hate me too.” he mumbled.

“I could never.” 

Even now, knowing what he’s done, you felt a plethora of emotions but hate wasn’t one of them. You watched him come to the table to collect his pack of smokes and lighter.

“Some time ago, I figured out why I caved and told you to just go without me…”

“Why was that?”

He took a long pause and looked at you as if he’d known he would never get to look at you again and you got chills on the back of your neck.

“I didn’t want to take a chance at being rejected.” he said, “If you’d rejected me, of all people, it would’ve been all over for me."

“Akira…”

He smiled bitterly then excused himself to the balcony for his own order of fresh air. 

You felt as if you’d been pummeled to a pulp. Bomb after bomb after atomic bomb of information and so much of it was far too heavy to process in one sitting. There was a hurricane of emotions surging inside and you had no idea what to make of anything except the fact that he’d wanted to marry you before.

Nishikiya– Akira wanted to marry you.

Wasn't it silly to wonder if marriage could have saved him? Was it selfish of you to leave him without fighting for it a little harder? Sure, he told you to go but shouldn’t you have known better than anyone that he was in pain? More pain than he was letting on? 

More importantly, could you have saved lives from getting absolutely ravaged?

At the same time, why was it always your responsibility to read his mind? At what point does a man put his fragile pride aside and stick his neck out fighting for what he values? Wasn’t he to blame for treading down this path paved with blood and anguish?

Questions swirled in your mind so quickly that it made you feel light headed. There was no way you’d be able to leave this place tonight with a sure answer to even a third of them. However, there was one thing you were certain of and there was a silly, 10 years younger version of you deep down in there who was bubbling with excitement at just the thought of it.

Taking a deep breath, you slid the door to the balcony open and you found him there leaning against the railing as he smoked his cigarette. Though you couldn’t see his face, you were beginning to be able to picture what sorts of expressions this version of him made  and you pictured one wrecked with emotion while trying so very hard to remain composed just enough to maintain control. Clenching the door handle, you wished for confidence as you said the words younger-you were pathetically dying to say aloud since it became relevant.

“You know, I probably would’ve said yes.” you said, trying to ignore the tears rolling down your cheeks.

He turned slowly, staring into your blurry eyes in confusion. “Huh?”

“Back then, if you asked me to marry you…” you smiled weakly, “I would’ve said yes.”

It had taken him a moment to realize what you said but once he understood, he flicked his cigarette off the balcony and took slow, deliberate steps toward you until there was barely any space left between the two of you. It was then that you noticed the tears glistening on his cheeks under the skyglow. He lifted a shaky hand to thumb away your tears while you stared into each other's eyes. Beyond the sounds of the city, you could hear one another’s erratic breathing. 

You reached up to do the same for him and through your weak smile, you whispered, “If you don’t kiss me now, I’ll--”

As if he’d been held back by a leash, snipped clean by your permission, he captured your lips and claimed them with his own. Akira hesitantly cupped the sides of your faces as your words from earlier tried and failed to stop him from doing what he’d been dying to do since he laid eyes on you. When you gasped, he began to pull away only to have you pull him back in and with that, all of his inhibitions left him– he reacquainted himself with you; tongue, teeth and all.

You gripped his collar in a futile attempt to bring him closer but he was as flush to you as your body was to the glass door. He let out a soft moan of your name and he feared that if you asked him to say anything else, your name was all that he could have offered you. 

Rolling his head to kiss you at a different angle, he shifted his footing and hissed at the feeling of his erection pressing into you as he lifted you against the glass. You wrapped his loose tie around your fist in another futile attempt to pull him closer accidentally tightening around his neck again but he didn’t mind it one bit. 

He agreed, you weren’t clearly close enough either.

You tore at the buttons of his black shirt while he unzipped your dress, both of you still kissing with minimal breaks for air. He secured you against the window while you fumbled with his belt. 

He broke the kiss to let you stand while he slid the shoulders of your dress down to expose your breasts then he dipped under the skirt of your dress to tug off your panties. The moment they were off, he wasted no time reacquainting himself with your cunt as well– so slick and all he’d gotten to do was kiss you. 

Fuck, how he missed you.

“_____.”

Akira hooked the undersides of your knees over his shoulders to hoist you up against the glass again, and he growled at the first uninterrupted swipe of you. Your nectar tasted even sweeter than before, he might’ve said you aged like fine wine. It had been a while since he last put effort into pleasuring a woman. 

When you’re the boss, the women came easy and a nut came cheap. He could believe it if he told himself that this whole while he’d been preserving his talents for you. After all, one opportunity and he dove right in. 

No convincing necessary.

His ears perked at the sound of your sweaty fingers squeaking against the glass while you repeated his name until it was unrecognizable. You came and you weren’t sure if it was because of how long it had been since you last been with someone or if it was just his sheer ability to please you like no other.

When he returned to eye level and looked into your eyes, you saw him again– the man that wanted nothing more than to love you and that man was starved for you. He slipped his pants down and with a nod from you he finally slipped inside of you. He hissed through each deep thrust while he pressed his nectar-coated lips against yours. Each thrust was slow but greedy. He made love to you like he never could with anyone else.

You still hadn’t fully recovered from the first orgasm but it wasn’t long before you were burying your fingers into his pomade slicked hair, trembling for a second.

He grunted, now burying his face into your neck, one hand cupping the back of your head to keep it from banging against the glass as he pounded into you.

“I love you.” he whispered through shaky breaths, surprising even himself but he couldn’t shut up if he wanted to– and he didn’t. “I love you. I love you. Ahh, fuck I fucking LOVE YOU.”

With his eyes clenched shut, images of the past came hurling back at him on each stroke: the first time he realized he loved you, the first time you kissed, the night you first made love, the first stupid fight, every time you made him feel safe in your arms, the day he decided he wanted to be with your forever, the ring, the first time you left him alone, the sex you had the night you returned, your final fight–

As you gripped the collar of his shirt, you were both too impatient to remove, you thought about the hand that held you so gently against the door and the one that so lovingly protected your head from thumping… How could hands this delicate be capable of doing anything but love?

His grip at the back of your neck tightened but even still, the tenderness was there. He pressed his face into your neck hard and you realized then that was attempting to muffle himself. 

And he wasn’t just holding you up, he was embracing you.

Much like the wetness dripping from your connection, there was a wetness pooling above your collarbone that was a touch too warm to be drool. 

Thump… Thump….. Thump.

Akira managed a few more thrusts against the glass, letting out an intense almost pained groan and then his hips finally slowed to a rolling stop.

You guided him back by his messy hair to take him. Eyes speckled either from tears or from squeezing them shut so tightly and his face glistened either tears or sweat. No matter the case, he was a beautiful mess looking at you with those soft, adoring eyes as if he was begging you to pause time and stay in the moment with him forever.

“Forgive me.” he whispered weakly. “Forgive me, ok?”

You were now on the verge of tears again. You took the end of his tie to clean both your faces and then you kissed him. 

“I do.” you whispered back finally but both of you were aware that there was much more at play here that was not your place to forgive. He gave you another deep kiss before lowering you back to your own two feet. 

After helping one another get redressed, he took your hand in his and led you back inside where it was warmer now that the afterglow was beginning to set it. You started past the broken glass from his earlier tantrum and you tugged him back. 

“Shouldn’t we clean that?”

He shook his head, “Leave it. After tonight, I’m selling the place. They’re gonna rip it to hell anyway. Why bother?” he said, now leading you down a quiet corridor and into a bedroom.

“Lay with me?” He said, “Let's play pretend for a little while.”

You nodded, he lowered the lights then gestured toward the bed. It was so comfortable that you melted into it straight away. When you looked over at him crawling to join you, he wore a small pleased grin.

“Why are you selling it?” you asked, absentmindedly studying the room.

“I’m never here. Today’s the first time this year.” 

“Geez, you can afford a place that you only visit once a year. You must really be living the high life.” you joked.

“Do you like it?”

You nodded against his chest, “Looks a lot like an old scrapbook I made. Maybe I should take you to court for stealing my ideas~?”

“I guess the designer did their job then… I’m glad you like it. Did you walk around before I got here?”

“I couldn’t get far.” You shook your head, “Too nervous.”

“Yeah? Damn. Try to take a good look before you leave, alright?” He said, “Aside from me and the designer, you’re the only one who's gone past the front door.”

“I didn’t take you for a loner.” you sneered. “Why is that?”

“I’m not.” He snickered, rubbing your shoulder. “I just knew you wouldn’t want ‘scary thugs’ roaming around your house.”

You slowly lifted yourself so that you could look at his face, “Akira.” You whispered.

He smiled at you then stared up at the ceiling, “Can you tell by how old school it is? They’re going to want to modernize it before they sell it off, I’ll bet. But, I love this place. Being here made me feel like you could hear me, like you were in the walls… It would’ve made a good first place for us.”

You brought your hand to your mouth and the waterworks were threatening an encore. 

“After I figured out why I chickened out of marrying you, I promised myself that if I found you again, I’d never let you go. I was supposed to win you back. We were supposed to get married and this was going to be our house until I really came up. It never came to pass… but just like the ring, I never got rid of it.” he explained. “Lame, I know.”

“You’re selling it now, though.”

“So much time has passed since then… Way too much. I finally gave up. I planned on leaving the key and the ring on the table when I signed it over. By the time I realized I could find you, I’d already started the process.”

“What a grandiose gesture and yet, so like you.”

You sank into his embrace again while you casually talked more about your lives but never once acknowledging the dark elephant in the room or a mention of when this night together would end, wishing that time outside the penthouse would freeze and you’d never have to say goodbye to one another again. 

When you woke up, you were underneath a comforter; your coat, a small box and a sheet of paper were lying next to you in place of Akira. Your eyes searched the room for any indication that he was still there. You panicked and picked up the notecard.

Thanks for tonight. I’ll never forget what it was like

to hold you in my arms again. I guess some things

never change. When it comes to you, I can’t man

up and face you head on.

When you open the box, you'll know what it means. 

Despite what I’ve done, I can't let you go. I want you 

by my side until it’s time to face the music. I’ll 

spend every last breath making sure you don’t 

regret it. But, if you don’t feel the same, no hard 

feelings.

If you take the ring, meet me at the Millennium

Tower Rooftop. I’m renting out an office there, I’ll

know when you make it. Wait there for me. If not, 

leave the ring behind or sell it. In the end, it

belongs to you. 

I hope you at least keep it close to remember me by, 

even if only to remind yourself not to make the same 

mistake twice. I'll always love you, ______.

-Yours, Akira

You silently cursed him for bringing you to tears yet again as you stared at the letter. Your heart pounded something awful when you reached for the box. A part of you was too terrified to open it but the curious part of you couldn’t have opened it fast enough. You couldn’t help but sob when the beautiful ring inside gleamed at you. 

Your head spun and you could’ve sat there for hours staring at the ring and the letter without realizing. You didn’t dare slide the ring on your finger as you’d known there may have been no turning back after that. 

Though the majority of your questions had been answered, there was obviously still so much to process.

So much to unpack. 

You knew that the past version of you would’ve leapt at a proposal but what about present you? Were you in any place to give yourself over to him again after all these years? A heated balcony romp with an ex was one thing but this would require more out of you that you’re not sure you’re strong enough for. 

Genuinely, what would you be to him now that you know everything? What responsibility did you hold here? Did knowing and staying silent make you an accomplice? 

You feared the idea of losing him again– the idea of losing him forever, but was the fear of what could come if you allowed him to place that ring on your finger greater? 

The impressive rock glistened back at you, tauntingly as if to ask, ‘So, what will you do?’

And you reached for it. 

What would you do?

[familyvideostevie]

what abouttttt eddie being a regular at your place of work (coffee shop? bookstore? some place he had to go one time and it’s not His Scene but he saw you & can’t get enough?)

omg hi bestie you got it! this made me lol also totally stealing your idea here and this is you working at a flower shop when eddie starts to become a regular for some reason | fluff, pre-relationship, 1.3k

--

It's a quiet day in the shop. Your favorite kind, since it means you get to spend more time on your arrangements and less time explaining to frustrated moms why you cannot bring their orchids back to life.

Is it weird that you like the company of flowers better than people? Yeah, maybe. But it's good money and you like to make people happy, however indirectly. Which is why you try to be nothing but kind to everyone who walks through the door.

But when the bell chimes and you turn to find this guy stumbling into the shop, you can't help but wonder what the hell he's doing here. You've never seen him before -- you'd remember. Long, frizzy curls and ripped jeans, a flannel on under a leather jacket and boots that make his footsteps heavy. He looks a bit scary, to be honest, but the way he almost knocks over a few pots of mums makes him less intimidating and more annoying than anything.

"Can I help you?" you call. He startles like he didn't expect anyone to be here. And then he does a double take.

"I need...flowers," he says. You try to keep a neutral expression on your face. Sometimes you play a game with yourself and try to predict what someone is going to ask for. Maybe he missed a birthday? Needs something to apologize to his mom? Maybe he's picking something up for a party.

"I think I can help you with that."

He coughs and his cheeks darken. "Right, yeah, obviously." He looks around and shoves his hands in his pockets.

"Do you need something specific?" you prompt. His eyes snap back to yours.

"Yeah," he says. "Yes. What says 'sorry I broke your couch?'"

Ah, you think. Apologizing to a girlfriend, probably. You're a little disappointed to realize it.

"I'm not going to ask questions," you tease. His mouth tugs up at the corner and he looks less embarrassed and more like a man on a mission.

"Good idea," he says. You leave the arranging table behind and wander around the shop, pulling stems from buckets as you go. The guy follows you around.

"Do they all mean something?" he asks. You glance over your shoulder at him. He's got his hands tucked in his pockets and his eyes are...really big and brown. And he's got lovely eyelashes. Wow.

"More or less," you say. Your bouquets are a mix, normally. Some flowers for meaning and some just for looks, unless a customer asks for something specific. You bring the bundle back to the table and wrap it in cellophane and then paper, tying it with a ribbon.

"She likes purple," he chimes in. You snip a length of that ribbon and tie the flowers together. Yes, for sure a girlfriend.

"Do you want a card?"

He blinks a few times. Was he staring at you? "What?"

"For the flowers?" You hold up a small folded piece of paper.

"Oh," he says. "Yeah, sure. Do you write it?" You nod. "Okay, uh. Can it say: Robin, We both know I can't afford to buy you a new couch, but hopefully this makes your place smell good. Eddie."

Eddie. Well, now you have a name for this guy you'll never see again.

"You've got nice handwriting," he says. You tie the card at the end of the ribbon and gently place the bouquet on the counter.

"Thank you." The cash register rings as you type in the price. "Twenty dollars, please." Eddie digs in his pockets and produces the bill. Your hands do not brush when he pays. "I hope she likes them," you say.

He looks confused for a second. Jeez, this guy isn't really focused on his girlfriend. "Oh," he says. "Yeah, thanks."

He waves and manages not to knock anything over on his way out. The door chimes and you sigh. Man, he was cute. You do hope this Robin girl likes her flowers.

Eddie comes back two days later and you find yourself worrying that he's broken something else.

"Did she not like them?" you ask without thinking. Eddie raps his knuckles on the table when he reaches you.

"Who?" His eyes travel up and down your form very quickly. Not like he can see much behind your apron, anyway, but still. Dude!

"Your girlfriend?"

Eddie blinks owlishly and then laughs very loudly. Like, with his whole body, leaning over with his hands on his knees. Oh, he's got rings on. Your stomach does something funny.

"She is not my girlfriend," he says. "Christ, that's funny."

You cross you arms, a bit peeved. "Well, I don't know how I was supposed to know that."

"Sweetheart, if I had a girlfriend and I broke her couch I sure as hell would buy her a new one."

Sweetheart. Is he flirting with you?

"Well, what do you need today, then? Break something else?" This close you can see that he's got some freckles on his nose. You rub your hands on your apron.

"I...do," he says. "Uh, I need something that says 'please don't tell anyone I stole your grill'."

He grins at you. You scoff. "Not asking."

It goes like this for two weeks. Two weeks! Eddie comes in to the shop almost every day and asks for something from you. The requests get more and more absurd.

Sorry you lost your sword crossing the parapet and died. Sorry I smoked too much and ate all of your pickles. Sorry you're not as good at skateboarding as me and fell.

You wonder if he's actually giving these to people.

You ask him so one day.

"Cant a guy just get flowers? Maybe they're all for me, sweetheart." He looks entirely too pleased with himself as he says it.

Or...maybe he's coming in to see you.

No, that would be ridiculous, right? Even if he's been asking you questions about yourself. What you like about flowers, what's the weirdest bouquet you've ever made, what you make most often. They manage to be personal and impersonal questions at the same time.

After two weeks, Eddie comes in and plants his forearms -- very nice forearms, you've noticed -- on the counter and says your name. As if you weren't aware the second he walked into the shop.

"Hi, Eddie," you say. "What is it today?"

"I need to ask a girl on a date," he says. Your stomach sinks.

"Okay," you say softly. Well, it was nice while it lasted. "What does she like?"

"That's the problem," he replies. "I don't know."

"Have you asked?" He might be cute and funny and charming but he certainly is still just a boy.

"Not yet." You wader onto the floor and he follows you as always. "What's your favorite?"

Your heart picks up. He's just asking to be nice, you think. He's just asking because it's a natural part of the conversation. You don't answer, instead lead him to a barrel of dark purple roundish flowers. "These," you say, stroking one of the petals. "Dahlias."

"Beauty, commitment, kindness," Eddie recites. You whip around to face him. He shrugs, a soft smile on his face. "I've been reading up."

"Why?" you ask, breathless.

He reaches past you and plucks one stem from the bunch and holds it out. "Will you go on a date with me?"

Oh. You're going to say yes, obviously. "Have you been coming in here to buy flowers?" you ask. It's not a clear question, but Eddie understands.

He takes a step forward. The flower brushes your chest. "I've spent about a million dollars on flowers just to see you as much as possible."

A laugh bubbles up from your throat. "You're silly, Eddie," you say. He grins.

"So is that a yes?"

You take the flower from him and smell it. "Yes."

thank you for reading <3 reblog, send feedback, masterlist here!

[etaindelaserna]

Can I ask from this ask game : https://www.tumblr.com/toomanyfandomsthings/749729499738996736/send-me-a-ship-and-a-number-and-ill-tell-you?source=share

No. 2, 10, 11, 12, 15 for Dramione, KakaSaku and SukuIta....Thanks 🌻

Dramione

No 2. Draco's love letters are written on the best pergament one can buy with gold. In addition he has made an effort to charm them to smell like freshly mown grass, because he knows how much Hermione adores the smell. His impeccable handwriting and phrasing are meant to turn these letters into literary pieces of grandeur about the nature of love and how obessed he his with Hermione and when she is finally going to marry him BUT in reality they are discussions about charm and potion theories, books they think the other should read and A LOT OF arguing about the practical application of said theories. There is still a lot of flirting and teasing on Draco's part, which never fails to either make Hermione almost explode or smile with the hint of a blush on her face. Hermione takes her responses very seriously and thus they are always too long, which in return causes Draco to point out, that she had made her point already 3 pages earlier. Since Hermione doesn't really get the hint that Draco is indulging her with these discussions, he at one point had started to include book pressed flowers with his letters. He even extended that to her most read books in the library.

No. 10. They are united by their love for adventure and fantasy shows that have either a certain storytelling or entertainment quality to them. They watched Game of Thrones, Vampire Diaries (of course comparing these vampires and werewolves to the real deal), Westworld, The Walking Dead (but only till season 5), Once Upon a Time (they're both intrigued by how mystical magic is portrayed), Stranger Things, Charmed, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, True Blood, Xena, The Witcher and American Gods. They tried to watch Outlander but Draco was annoyed that Hermione seems to get awefully quiet every time Jamie smiled or smirked or was shirtless, so Hermione watched Outlander, Spartacus and Rome on her own. Draco on the other hand was hiding from her Band of Brothers, Homeland, House of Cards and The Pacific.

No. 11. Draco's first impression of Hermione was, that she seems to be just as snotty and aristocratic in the way she carries herself as he was but without the name or reputation to back it up. She thought too highly of herself, her opinions and seemed to think she was better than anyone else. She seemed to only help others if it benefited her. Hermione thought Draco to be just another rich brat, who thinks Daddy's money is going to solve all of his problems instead of working hard.

No. 12. They don't talk about it, athough Draco is dropping hints and he wants to negotiate what they are going to do for their anniversary, but Hermione says, she's too busy and whatnot. In the end Draco kidnaps her. They are visiting Versailles and the Louvre and he schedules an interview with one of Hermiones favourite authors. Hermione feels guilty for not realizing how much this day means to him and allwos him to take her to a fancy restaurant. Afterwards they take a walk along the Seine and they dance and laugh and drink a bottle of wine. She tells him, she loves him and kisses him and in response he asks her if they now can start working on "Project Baby".

No. 15. Sometimes Hermione whised Draco wasn't so high and mighty but then he wouldn't be Draco and she wouldn't be able to tease him about it. Draco sometimes whished Hermione wasn't so god damn selfless all the time, he whished she would take more care of herself instead of sacrificing everything for everyone.

KakaSaku

No. 2. Kakashi's love letters are basically just post-its or random torn-off pieces of paper which Sakura finds EVERYWHERE: on her desk, her drawer, the fridge, among her medical supplies, sailing out of her clothes or stuck to her backpack. They mostly contain one or two sentences, sometimes just a word or a doodle. But the most emportant thing: they always make her smile. Sakura's love letters are at least two pages long and contain detailed reports about a new medical jutsu she has mastered, a new food item she has tried or the complete mystery of why all of her plants keep on dying. In between she slips sentences about what he would have said or done in these situations. One of Kakashi's ninken has been put on mail duty and is to stay with her until Sakura has finished her reply.

No. 10. Sakura would never admit it but she actually enjoys watching rom coms, period drama or soap operas with Kakashi. Not because she wants to use them as ammo to tease him about it but because they are lighthearted entertainment with some analysis or commentary about the hardships of relationships sprinkled in every now and then. They ease her mind and she adores how invested Kakashi is. It's kinda cute. They watched Bridgerton, How I met your Mother, Ugly Betty, My Secret Romance, True Beauty, Downton Abbey, Poldark, Tudors and Outlander. The more teenage-targeted shows like Vampire Diaries, Never Have I Ever, Reign, Riverdale, Smallville and One Tree Hill she keeps to herself. Kakashi doesn't watch anything if it's not with Sakura.

No 11. Kakashi's first impression of Sakura was that she is just another kid who hasn't figured out life yet and who is still too focused on herself and on superficial things that won't matter in the long run. He tries not to judge her too harshly for her perspective because just like all genin, she'll have to grow up faster then she thinks. Sakura had a hard time believing that this man really was an elite shinobi with a widespread reputation that makes him known, respected and even feared by s-class criminals. He seemed too goofy, yet bored to be their teacher and not really interested in teaching, which enraged her.

No. 12. Sakura debated with herself for a long time whether she should bring up the "anniverseries" topic at all with Kakashi. Not because she thought he was indifferent to it. The contrary: she knew him to be a hopeless romantic. So she felt a lot of pressure to deliver something profound. Kakashi noticed within a week what it was that put Sakura under this much stress and decided to plan little things for them before the actual date: they tried the new ice cream flavor in Konoha's one and only gelato shop, he bought a new board game for Saturday nights, they went to take pictures of them with silly little hats and mustaches, they took a dance class together and tried to paint a portray of each other, which caused Sakura to laugh so hard, she almost peed herself. It made Sakura realise that they didn't have to do anything super extraordinary. So when their anniversary came around, they spent the better part of it assembling a new kitchen cupboard. Sakura cooked Kakashi's favourite dish and in the afternoon they went to the book shop and challenged each other to find the funniest romcom title books. They read them out aloud and whoever laughed first, lost. Sakura lost and Kakashi decided to drag her to a karaoke bar. Afterwards they sat down in the park and watched the stars together.

No. 15. There are times when Kakashi wished Sakura had abandoned Sasuke earlier. Not from her life but from her heart. A lot of her training and strength was a result of not wanting to put the burden of dealing with Sasuke on Naruto alone. Some of her heart was broken and it took a long time to fix the damage. Sakura wished Kakashi wouldn’t try to handle everything by himself all the time.

SukuIta

No 2. Yuuji loves to write love letters. He spends hours deciding on the perfect paper and what kind of colours Sukuna likes or doesn't like. When it comes down to the actual writing, Yuuji isn't a man of huge or many words. He likes to ask Sukuna silly questions such as "Would you still love me if I was a worm?" or "Do you want to be my boyfriend? Yes, No, Please don't check both". Yuuji decorates the letters with little hearts or flowers, sometimes slipping in one of the fotos he's taken of Sukuna while eating or napping with a commentary on the back of it. Sukuna would rather die than admitting that he kind of adores Yuuji's innocent, silly displays of attachment. He still thinks they're a waste of time. If he didn't like the brat, the brat would know. But he doesn't want to be an asshole so he either writes Yuuji beautiful poems or paints something in return. But he never answers Yuuji's letters, which bothered Yuuji at first, but then he read the first poem and still tries to recover from that.

No. 10. Yuuji always thought it would be such a headache to persuade Sukuna to watch ANYTHING with him, let alone comedy horror, body horror or horror with some romance or strong friendships sprinkled in it, but no. Sukuna does complain a lot about the nonsensical plotlines or the lack of gore at times but for the most part he was down to watch What We Do In The Shadwos, Ash Vs. Evil Dead, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, The Last of Us and The Walking Dead. Since Sukuna wanted a little bit more suspense and psychological horror he blackmailed Yuuji into watching American Horror Stories, The Hounting of Hill House and Hannibal. Ulterior motive here being to make Yuuji snuggle up to him. Sukuna doesn't bother watching anything without Yuuji but Yuuji tries to hide the fact that he likes to watch Jane The Virgin, Sex Education and Young Royals when he feels down.

No 11. Sukuna's first impression of Yuuji was that he thought him to be weak and overly concerned with the safety of others to the point of it being not entertaining anymore. Just an annoying brat who lets himself be easily manipulated and who would break under the slightest pressure. And yet said brat was able to control him, which angered Sukuna beyond measure. At least his vessel had a great physique if nothing else. Yuuji on the other hand felt indifferent about Sukuna at first. He didn't know who or what he was only that he wasn't about to surrender his body to him.

No 12. Yuuji thinks anniversaries are important because it’s important to make new memories and also to remember the old ones. Sukuna couldn’t care less but let’s the brat do whatever he likes to do for an anniversary. So they end up in the ice cream shop from where they kissed for the first time and eat ice cream until they feel ill. Afterwards Yuuji drags Sukuna into a nearby park to watch the clouds together. Sukuna thinks it’s silly but he is indulging Yuuji and at least he gets to cuddle with him.

No 15. Yuuji wished Sukuna would stop thinking that Yuuji only likes him for his power. This and that he has zero empathy for everybody else. Sukuna wished Yuuji would finally use his power for selfish reasons and unleash his full potential. That’s something he wouldn’t be able to forgive him.

[crazylittlejester]

The Chain as things that I did/have happened to me in December

⚠️Cw: very brief mention of alcohol near the end. Stay safe besties!!⚠️

Please take your time answering this, there is absolutely no rush! Your mental and physical health come first!

Four- Forgot his friends got their fire privileges taken away for being stupid. Got all of them candles for the holidays.

Legend- Got the piercing he’s been wanting/complaining about for years without telling his friends. Walked into a holiday party with them and surprised them. He also did this after he dyed his hair purple in a foreign country 6 months prior to this. (Bonus: Got a paper cut on his tongue from a holiday card he sent out with his roommates)

Sky- Handed out flyers for a medical study on a college campus he doesn’t attend as a favor for a friend and not one, not two, but SEVEN people from the same on campus religious organization came up to him and asked if he knew God loves him. After the 3rd person, he started lying to them and came up with different fake stories each time. Felt kind of bad for lying to them.

Wars- Left his room to get water at 3:30 AM, came back and heard rustling noises from inside, immediate assumed someone had broken in, and grabbed a roll of wrapping paper in case he needed to defend himself. Forgot his cat taught herself how to open doors.

Wild- Ran barefoot and in jeans in a race with his friends. Fell and ate shit on the concrete. Ruined his knees, hands, foot and ripped holes in the jeans/one of his socks. Was more upset about losing the race than the giant bruises and scrapes. This was on the first day of the month and the bruises STILL haven’t fully gone away.

Wind- Went to the beach twice in the span of a three days. Had a staring contest with a seagull and won the first time and watched in horror as a kid grabbed a hand full of sand and ATE IT the second.

Hyrule- Consumed his first big boy cup of alcohol and he found out he was a “sit and zone out facing a wall” drunk. Zoned back in and wrote an essay on the medical inaccuracy in Grey’s Anatomy and other medical shows and how it can be harmful for funsies.

Twilight- Choked on a piece of cheese because his friend made him laugh. Swears up and down he knows how to chew. (Bonus: Let his friends give him tattoos on his back and arms with body markers and THEY WOULDN’T COME OFF. Panicked because he was SUPPOSED to meet his brother’s girlfriend’s family the next day.)

Time- A younger friend called a vinyl record a CD and he got so viscerally upset he threw his phone across the room. (Bonus: He was gardening and picked up a pot that was stacked in another pot. He didn’t see there was a giant lizard in it so when he picked up the pot and it jumped at him, he screamed like a little girl and dropped the pot. His wife won’t stop making fun of him.)

Happy New Year!! I hope 2025 brings more silly stories to everyone!! -🗓️🌀

IM CRYING AT WIND AND TIME'S.

also oh my god Wars is so me, I've gotten up to use the bathroom and come back to something moving in the shadows and almost had a panic attack just to realize it is in fact my son (dog) trying to figure out where i went

[zoydraft]

They're DOGS (and cats) and they're playing UNO!

I've been playing The Roottrees are Dead, which is not on the level of Return of the Obra Dinn, but I'm still enjoying it. It made me wonder if I could create something in that vein of mystery games / logic puzzles that my 3.5 year old would enjoy.

Can you make a mystery for someone who is illiterate?

I planned the game to be a guided experience of course, but I wanted the player to be able to review clues they have received, which meant presenting clues as pictographs, but even more than that, creating clues and puzzles that could be conveyed as pictographs.

Case of the Golden Idol provided inspiration for a more manageable scope for the puzzle than Obra Dinn or Roottrees.

Since he's not only illiterate, but also a pre-schooler I decided that hints would be explicitly provided as such. That is, there's very little you need to notice. It's really just a little logic puzzle.

That made me realize I don't really know what a mystery game is. Is it just a logic puzzle with some flavouring? It's an impetus to keep going? This is an un-baked thought and I'm sure many people have answered it, but how do we differentiate genre as game mechanics versus genre as narrative vs genre as whatever else. "Western" is truly a genre of film, with conventions beyond the setting, but is Red Dead Redemption a Western, any more so than that godawful Super Mario Bros Movie is a platformer? Anyways, this may be the most college freshman thought I have ever written down.

Making the Game

I borrowed liberally from an early puzzle in Case of the Golden Idol where you deduce who was sitting where around a table. I needed something easy to draw and to differentiate, so dogs and cats sitting around a table playing cards came up pretty organically / spontaneously. Kid likes Uno, so I have them playing cards.

Basically, everyone was playing cards, got up for snacks, and now can't remember where they were sitting. Who has Uno?

I worked through the clues one by one, thinking alternating between clues that will be useful later and clues that provide concrete information. I've never had to think through this kind of puzzle before, so it was fun to do.

From my very first notes I only had to make a few revisions, mostly around pushing puzzle elements to be more distinct. I built the clues and the table layout simultaneously. I can imagine this getting exponentially more complicated, but it helps me visualize games like Obra Dinn better, and the way they weave linear strings together to keep puzzles tidy for the designer and player.

Stray thought: I can't help but think of the unpleasantness of overly-linear escape rooms. If you're going to make me do a bunch of puzzles one after another, they better be interesting puzzles, and maybe just dispense with the overarching conceit, unless they tie in really well. Anyway, I haven't been to an escape room in over 5 years, so I think I'm in the clear.

Setup

I made the game from two pieces of paper, with the table sheet, 8 animal cards, and 3 clue cards. The clue cards are double-sided. There was no world where this wasn't going to be a guided game run by me, but an obvious spot for improvement would be adding criteria for when to flip clues 2 & 3. I knew when they should be flipped, but I didn't make it clear anywhere.

Play Experience

The game went over well, and he kept interesting and engaged throughout, but he needed some prompting at times.

He understood the first two clues no problem, but didn't immediately get the uncertainty of which stool which blue animal would sit in. Fair enough, he's never done this before!

He understood the pattern, and where the orange dog needed to go but needed some help understanding the orange and purple being together. I think in general he had a difficult time understanding that I was trying to communicate a clue about an animal of a specific colour without specifying the animal.

He was very pleased to place the small cat on the big chair, and registered that the last clue was about the robot being across from the blue and purple, but then had a hard time translating that into the correct seat without me telling him. I don't know what the hang up was there. Once he got that right he was easily able to follow the seating pattern to complete the pattern.

Other Post-Mortem Notes

I think I got the difficulty level almost right, and the sequencing of hints worked pretty well.

This took a lot of time to think through and make (maybe an hour?) for how long it took to play (maybe 10 minutes?), and is really not extensible. That would scare me off from making another game like this in the future. Maybe I just need to think more about how it could be built upon, but I'm skeptical.

I could have put more effort into structuring the clues so that they could consistently be discarded or not. As is, the first clue is superfluous once you've placed the first two animals, but you need the second clue until the end.

The placement of the cards on the table was not confusing to him, but I was worried it might be.

He was very positive about this game and said he'd like to play it again, which is nice. If that ends up happening, I wonder if he'll just memorize the solution.

Created March 24, 2025. Played March 25.

Addendum March 29: my kid actually has wanted to keep playing this, and has more or less memorized the solution, but still works it through in clue order, and is able to either interpret or recite what the clues are supposed to communicate. He has asked for more games like this, which is a tall request. We'll see if I have it in me.

[skelavender]

There’s a letter in Tommy’s mailbox. It’s not a bill, not an advertisement. A bona fide letter, with his name penned carefully across the back. There’s no return address and no stamp. Tommy runs his thumb across the corner of the envelope as he contemplates it. When he flips it over and sees the actual red wax seal holding the flap down, he realizes what it is and drops it onto the counter like it’s burned him. Evan. Buck. OR Reconciliation through a series of letters.

read the center of every poem on ao3, listen to the podfic on gdrive, or find it below the cut!

you can also listen to evan's playlist and tommy's playlist on spotify.

“the centre of every poem is this:     i have loved you. i have had to deal with that.”

Letters From Medea, Salma Deera

***

There’s a letter in Tommy’s mailbox.

It’s not a bill, not an advertisement. A bona fide letter, with his name penned carefully across the back. There’s no return address and no stamp.

Tommy runs his thumb across the corner of the envelope as he contemplates it. When he flips it over and sees the actual red wax seal holding the flap down, he realizes what it is and drops it onto the counter like it’s burned him.

Evan.

Buck.

Buck had driven across town to drop this off himself. He had been outside. Was Tommy home? Did he miss his chance to catch one last glimpse of Buck?

Had he wanted to come inside?

Tommy doesn't let himself dwell on that possibility.

A memory comes to him, a few months ago. Chris’s birthday. A couple weeks beforehand, Tommy had knocked on Evan’s door and been greeted with the sight of Evan’s thumb pressed gently against his own lips.

A paper cut, Evan had explained. When Tommy looked past him, the counter top was spread with a mess of different types of papers, envelopes, rubber stamps, pens, and ink pads.

That was when he learned about Evan’s — Buck’s — greeting card habit. Every birthday came with a custom made card, slaved over for hours. Every gift was countered with a thank you note a week later. The card Chris would be receiving had layers of different colors of card stock, and "Happy Birthday!" was nearly stamped across the front.

This is… not a birthday card. Tommy’s birthday isn’t for another three months, and Buck knows this. He doubts it’s a thank you card, because thanks for ripping your heart out by breaking up with me! seems pretty callous. The only other thing Tommy can imagine it being is a postmortem.

Tommy… Tommy’s not sure if he’s ready for that yet.

He’s still too raw. Thinking about breaking the wax seal makes his skin sting like air on muscle, like he’s covered in a thousand of Buck’s greeting card paper cuts.

The letter mocks him from the countertop for two more days before he sits down with it and a beer squarely in front of him. It takes him an hour and another bottle to flip it over and slide his finger under the seal. It pops off in one piece, and Tommy breathes.

He slides the paper out of the envelope, but doesn’t unfold it yet. Its color matches the envelope perfectly, but the texture is different. It’s heavier, and thicker. It’s the nice stuff, the stationary he knows Buck spent way too much money on and saves for important letters. Which means this, to Buck, is an important letter.

Tommy stands and paces the kitchen. The letter keeps screaming at him from the counter, calling him a coward, calling him weak, in a voice eerily similar to that of his father.

Tommy makes it halfway through another beer leaning against the door jamb of the kitchen when he sets the bottle down a little too hard on the counter, slides back into his seat, and flips the paper open before he can back out again.

Tommy,

Tommy tears up immediately, reading just his own name on the page in the same handwriting he would see in good morning notes left on his bedside when Evan had an early morning shift, or stuck to a container of tupperware with reheating instructions and a “see you tomorrow!”

He continues reading.

Tommy,

I’ve tried to write this so many times, but it either comes out too desperate or too pushy. I hope this time I manage to find the balance, because I’m not sure how many more times I can write this before I lose my mind. 

I’ve been running every moment with you over and over in my head, trying to figure out where I went wrong, or which interactions I misunderstood, or how we ended up on such different pages, or what I could have changed to hold onto you. If I had chased after you, would you have stayed and kissed me? If I had kept you awake with my research one night less, could I have kept you for one more? I’ve been reading up on chaos theory and the butterfly effect. One minute change could have altered everything. There are infinite different paths we could have taken, and I can’t understand why we ended up on this one. It just doesn’t feel right to me. 

I didn’t think I would have to tell you this, but I guess you didn’t get the message: we were serious. Or, at least, I was serious about you. You were my boyfriend, my partner, not an experiment. I’ve had a lot of partners I wasn’t serious about — I think I had slept with a good quarter of the single women in LA at one point, and I’m done with that. I’ve been done with that for years. Realizing that I’m queer hasn’t changed the fact that have no interest in sleeping around anymore; it’s not fulfilling to me. And I have had meaningful emotional relationships, ones that have made me feel cared for and loved, at least for a while. That includes you. None of that changes because men are suddenly an option.

I don’t know why it’s so important to me that you know that. I’m not aiming to make you feel guilty, or regretful, or confused. Maybe it’s selfish, but I needed to get that off my chest. 

I wish you the best,

Evan

Tommy is in tears by the time he finishes the letter. God. Tommy had known he had fucked up the second he closed the door of Buck’s loft behind him, but now the pain is sunken far enough into his chest that it lives there now.

***

There’s a letter in Evan’s mailbox.

This fact alone is not particularly unusual. He has a couple friends from his days on the road that he still exchanges letters with. But his name and address are scrawled across the front familiar chicken scratch. Tommy’s chicken scratch. Buck’s breath hitches.

The return address confirms it. His name isn’t there, but Buck knows that address. He’s spent hours there; he’s plugged it into his phone countless times to try to find the quickest way to cross town. He had done so as recently as last week, to drop off…

Oh. The letter.

Buck hadn’t expected a response, to be honest. He had only wanted to voice — or, well, pen — his feelings, which he hadn’t actually been able to do when Tommy had broken up with him because he was so caught off guard. But here he is, holding a letter nestled in an ivory envelope. A suspiciously nice ivory envelope, with a texture similar to the ones he saves for important letters.

Buck hasn’t scrambled up to his loft faster in his life. He beelines for the box that contains the LAFD letter opener he had… liberated… during his fire marshall days and slips it into the flap of the envelope, prying it open as carefully as he can with his trembling hands.

The paper is heavy. It’s not the exact same stuff Buck uses, but it’s nice enough that Tommy must have had to go out and buy it. This is paper that requires intent.

He starts reading it right there on the floor, knelt in front of his stationary box.

Buck –

I’m sorry. I’m sorry I hurt you; I’m sorry I left you reeling.

But you have to understand, baby, this is how it has to be.

I really meant it when I said you’re absolutely incredible. I don’t want you to be feeling like you were too much, or not enough, or anything like that. You are such a wonderful man and you’re going to make an amazing partner once you find someone good enough for you. You’re a precious thing, and you deserve someone equally precious. But that’s not me.

It wasn’t that I wasn’t serious about you, Evan Buck, the problem is that I was. I love I fell was falling far too hard for you. I know you care cared about me, but you have so much love to give, and I’m I was so afraid that you would regret it if you chose to give it to me.

I’m still I think about you I wanted to text I still see you everywhere I miss you I made it all the way to the checkout with a book I thought you would like the other day before I realized what I was doing

You’ve found this whole new side of you, and I’m so, so happy I could help you find it, but it would destroy me to help you keep exploring.

Again, I’m sorry.

Tommy

For the first time since the breakup, Buck is mad.

He’s cycled through every other stage of grief multiple times, sometimes all in one day. He had felt a little better after dropping the letter off, like he was inching towards closure. But now that Tommy is doubling down, insisting that he somehow isn’t enough for Buck…

It’s ridiculous. Buck thought that Tommy would throw it into the trash, if Buck was lucky he might give it a read before he did so and that would be that. But now Buck is stuck with another layer of pain to work through before he can move on.

He squints through the scribbled out bits, but Tommy was too thorough, and Buck can’t read it. Perhaps something that makes sense is hidden under the loops of ink, some key that makes anything that Tommy said make sense with how Buck saw their relationship.

Buck wants to make a photocopy and draw lines between the letters, connect the things Tommy has said to certain interactions. He wants to annotate the letter like a high school student writing an essay on a poem. He wants to break it down to the tiny bits and pieces and weave it into something that makes sense.

Buck’s phone is ringing. He removes it from his pocket and snaps a “what” into the microphone without even checking to see who was calling.

“Jesus, who pissed in your cheerios?” Eddie asks from the other end.

“Tommy.”

Eddie sighs. “Buck, I told you not to call him!”

“I didn’t, but I… I left him a letter the other day. He sent one back.”

“And?”

“He doubled down on it. I’m great, but he’s not good enough for me.”

“Damn.” A beat of silence. “You’re going to ignore it, right?”

“No, I’m going to write a letter back.”

“Ooh, no you’re not.” Eddie says. The sound of a car door slamming comes through the phone. “You are not going to write him an angry letter. If Clipboard Buck is scary, Angry Letter to the Manager Buck is a million times worse. You want to get back together, right? That’s why you sent the letter?”

“I don’t even know!” Buck bursts, “I just wanted closure, one way or another, and he didn’t really give me a chance to say anything before he just… up and left.”

“Well, if you write that letter now, you’re going to close that door for good, and you’ll never know what could have happened if you had waited until you were calmer.”

Buck sighs. “Yeah, yeah, alright.”

“I’m already on my way over. Don’t do anything until I get there. I’ll see you soon.”

“I’ll see you.” Buck hangs up and stares at the letter box, calling out to him.

When Eddie walks through the door of the loft, Buck is sitting at the table with his fancy letter paper in front of him.

“Buck,” Eddie drawls, disappointed.

“I didn’t!” Buck defends. “I’m just thinking about it.”

“Put your stupid $50 paper away and let's go to a museum or something. C’mon.”

“It was only $37.”

“Let’s go, Buck.”

***

Did you know that LA has an all night fine stationery store? Tommy does. Because he had looked it up and Doordashed a set of expensive paper and pens at midnight. The driver had looked at him like he was crazy, but Tommy had written the letter in twenty minutes and dropped it into the blue mailbox down the street before he could sober up enough to second-guess himself. He hadn’t even written a clean copy, instead leaving bits scribbled out on the final page, hopefully thoroughly enough that Buck wouldn’t be able to decipher the parts he had decided were too raw for Buck to see.

Evan, apparently, hadn't been too put off by Tommy's sloppiness, because he's responded. This envelope is the same creamy ivory color as the last, with his name written neatly across the back, with a wax seal. This one, however, has a stamp and Tommy's address below his name. The corner is bent and scuffed, clearly packed into some poor mailman's bag for too many hours. Tommy peels the envelope open delicately, and starts to read.

Tommy,

Eddie talked me down from being too mean to you, but god, you fucking asshole. Did you read a single thing I wrote?

I could never regret you. I’ve never regretted dating anyone, I’ve certainly never regretted caring about someone. Everyone I’ve been in a relationship with has led me to where I am today. That’s part of what I was trying to tell you, with Abby – our breakup sucked, and it really hurt me for a long time, but that relationship transformed me. She was my first – the first person I actually dated instead of just sleeping with. You were my first man, but not my first partner. That was Abby. I’ve had my heart broken and learned how to heal it. I’m not someone who is going to brush you aside for the sake of my own self discovery. Being in a relationship with a man is new to me, and yes, there were some things I had to learn with that, but loving is not.

I’ve spent so much time and energy sprinting through relationships and then holding onto them when I should probably let go – Abby, Taylor, hell, even my parents. I’m sorry I moved too fast for you. I was really, really trying to slow it down this time, to let our relationship grow on its own instead of drawing shapes around where I wanted it to form.

I did not view our relationship as you helping me figure myself out. I viewed us as two people who liked each other and wanted to build a life together. I need you to understand that I cared about you, and that feeling was genuine. What did I do that made you feel otherwise? That I was just using you? I don’t do that. I’ve been nothing but used my whole life. I never want to make someone else feel that way. I need that to get through to you. I can’t have you walking through life thinking that you’re nothing but a stepping stone. You’re not.

You are worthy of love that lasts.

Evan

Reading the first paragraph feels like a shot of ice to Tommy’s veins, how he had misunderstood Buck’s history so terribly. They had never really had a conversation about exes, but they really should have. The second makes the acidic burn of guilt flood through him, that somehow Buck is apologizing as though he has done something wrong. The last bit… well.

Despite everything, it makes Tommy feel warm. Cared for.

A life together.

With three words, Buck has painted a picture that Tommy wants, more than anything. Buck’s bike mounted in the garage. His Jeep in the driveway. His socks between sheets, no matter how many times Tommy complains about them. Sunday dinners with the Hans, or barbecues with the extended family of the 118. A cat. Maybe, if Tommy could convince Evan, a couple kids.

Tommy wishes it were possible. History has said it is not the case.

***

Buck has never checked his mailbox as obsessively as he has this week, waiting for a letter from Tommy to arrive. He had mailed it properly this time, with a stamp and an address instead of a personal drop-off.

With his first letter, Buck hadn’t expected a response. This time, he does. But as the days drag on with only bills and useless coupons, he starts to lose hope. Perhaps he had come on too strong, been too harsh, or too vulnerable, or any other undesirable thing.

It comes two weeks after Buck’s letter had hit the USPS. He’s on his way inside with a couple bags of groceries when he checks his mailbox, and there it sits. The same creamy ivory envelope, the same messy handwriting addressing it to him, the same save the sea turtles stamp.

He makes it upstairs in a far less rushed manner. Very calmly, he puts his groceries away and lets the letter sit on the counter. When everything is away, Buck fetches his letter opener and flicks the letter open.

Buck –

It took me a couple days to respond, but I really wanted to put the thought in to give you a genuine, thought-out answer, not just a knee-jerk reaction.

First of all, I want to apologize again for how I treated you that night. I never should have discounted the relationships you've had in the past. I'm not trying to make excuses for how I acted, it was shitty and wrong, but I want you to understand what was happening in my head and why.

My first response was that you hadn’t done anything wrong to make me feel that way. While I still think that is true, the response has to come from somewhere, and I think it was how I came out. I used a lot of people. I used Abby to help me keep up the macho straight guy facade. I used a bunch of men for sex after I finally admitted to myself that I was gay. We hooked up in the bathrooms in gay bars, and I never told them my name so no one could out me. Many others did the same to me, and that is what I’m used to. I assumed that you would need someone to help you figure yourself out as well, but I understand now that it’s not what you need. That doesn’t reflect how I felt about you, or what I wanted, but it’s what I thought I could get. And I was so hungry for any bit of you, I took what I could – or what I thought you were giving. I still thought you would leave, eventually. I’m sorry that I assumed the worst of you. I’m sorry for assuming you cope in the same ways I did. My experiences are my own, and not applicable to anyone else.

I wish I could do it all over knowing this. Not just that day, but the whole time we were together. I don’t know that I would have changed much, but I would have cherished it differently. I think I did a lot of mourning, even though our relationship was very much alive. I would look at you and think “He’s so beautiful,” and then, immediately, “Someday I won’t get to look at him like this anymore.”

When you asked me to move in, I had this moment of hope. Like everything I could have ever wanted was right there, reaching out to me. You were reaching out to me. But it got overshadowed by all this worry, and this fear, and I couldn’t deal with that. In your first letter, you mentioned infinite possibilities for the future, and that’s exactly what I saw. Infinite timelines where that moment was the flap of the butterfly’s wings that caused a hurricane of heartbreak. A thousand futures were I would think, “God, if only I hadn’t moved in with him, this would hurt so much less.”

But now I’m not so sure that it would hurt less, because I’m so in love with you, Evan. I have been so in love with you, even if I couldn’t identify it before I left. I didn’t know that my love for you was what caused that fear, I only knew that it was choking me, and I couldn’t let that happen. So, like a fool, I hurt both of us because I thought it would protect myself.

Love,

Tommy

Buck takes in a deep breath. Lets it out. Repeats the action.

He’s starting to understand where Tommy’s mind is at. He still doesn’t agree, doesn’t think he was in the right, but Tommy’s mental state is starting to come into focus. This letter is much more insightful than the last one, and Buck just feels…

Well, he feels sorry for the guy. It can’t be easy to be haunted by the man right in front of you.

Buck wishes they had talked about it then, but he also understands how that would be difficult when Tommy is actively trying not to pull him closer or let him in.

He hadn’t even addressed Buck’s assertion that he deserved love, maybe because he disagreed and didn’t want to cause more of an argument, or maybe because it was too raw for him to touch.

But still, it feels like a step in the right direction.

***

Tommy,

First of all, thank you so much for being vulnerable and sharing your past with me, and how it has been affecting you. I feel a lot closer to you now, in a way I didn’t know I was missing when we were dating, and I really, really like the feeling.

That honestly sounds pretty miserable, both the hiding and the mourning. I'm sorry you went through that.

Can we please try to fix it? To work on things together? I want to be with you again, Tommy, I really do, but I’m so afraid of you leaving again. I’ve been left behind so many times, and I can’t do it again. This whole ordeal hit me in a very weak spot. Before we try again, I need you to prove to me that you won’t run away next time you get scared, but that you’ll talk to me. That you know I’m here, and I want to help you through all that. I feel like I was the one guiding us for most of our relationship, driving us in the direction I wanted, and we need to make sure neither of us let that happen again. I need you to check me if I’m pushing too far forward. I need for both of us to feel secure, safe, and close.

Evan

P.S. Please for the love of god stop calling me Buck. It feels so wrong from you.

***

The next letter Buck receives comes on the same stationery as the rest, but the content is one line.

Evan,

I want that more than anything. What can I do to get us there?

With love,

Tommy

Evan smiles and heads for his stationery box.

***

Tommy swears he’s been holding his breath since he sent off his latest letter.

Evan’s latest letter. He can be Evan again.

When he opens his mailbox and sees Evan’s envelope, he’s choked up. He sits on the curb and reads it right there on the street.

Tommy,

I’ll be honest, I’m not entirely sure.

I don’t know when I’ll be ready, or how to get there, but I know I will be one day. This is fixable, if we can both heal.

How about this: we can keep writing letters. We keep our communication here, and when we figure we’re ready, we’re ready. Until then, we’re pen pals. I’m not planning on dating or sleeping with anyone else, but if you decide to, I just ask that you be honest with me about it.

I still want to be with you, I swear I do. I accidentally ordered your coffee on my way home this morning. I didn’t even realize what I had done until I got home and realized that I had two cups. I want to live in a world where I can come home and hand it to you and tell you about the crazy calls from today. But I think it’s best if we work this out before we jump back in and have the same issues again in a couple months, and I honestly think that if I see you right now I’ll fall into your arms without actually fixing anything. I want us to build something strong together, something that lasts.

Evan

Tommy glances over at the tall stack of heavy paper he had bought a couple weeks ago. Yeah, he thinks he can make this work.

***

Evan,

I love that idea. I haven't really written many letters, but I’ve been surprised by how much I’ve been enjoying it. I want to hear about your day and all the weird calls, so tell me here. It doesn’t all have to be the heavy stuff. We can build our foundation on the small moments too, they’re important.

I understand the coffee thing though. I chose the turtle stamps because they seemed like something that would make you smile. A couple weeks ago I made it to the checkout counter with a book I thought you’d like before I realized what I was doing. I put it back, but I’ll go back for it if you let me. It was about a bunch of misconceptions and myths. I mentioned it in my first letter, but scribbled it out because I was afraid it was too much. I guess I didn’t want you to know how badly I missed you. I’m not so afraid of that, now that we’ve talked a bit more.

So, tell me about your weird calls. We picked up a guy who got impaled by a golf club in the middle of the woods. I still have no clue how he managed to do it. We don’t get as many weird calls as you guys do at the 118 — you’re like a magnet for the weirdest of the weird calls. I can’t wait to hear about your day.

Tommy

P.S. I didn’t think it would have to be said, but I’ll be clear just in case – I have no interest in dating or sleeping with anyone else. Ever.

***

Tommy,

I can’t tell you what a relief it is to hear that. I would have made my peace with you being with other people while we’re apart, but it makes me really, really happy that you aren’t.

We do tend to have weirder calls than most other firefighters I’ve talked to. I didn’t realize it when I started at the 118, but after a couple “What do you mean you’ve never cut a premature baby out of a toilet pipe?” conversations, I started to get the message.

This week was like a series of sex mishaps, at least one every shift. Someone got stuck on one of those fucking machines (people use those outside of porn??), someone had an allergic reaction to cherry flavored lube. Some basic accidental handcuffings. I don’t know what’s in the air, maybe it’s because we have a second moon? Did I tell you about the second moon? I will gladly tell you about the second moon. I'm a little obsessed with it, but I think that Hen might slap me if I mention it at work again.

Evan

***

Evan,

You haven’t told me about the second moon — please do. I’ve missed you and your rambling. The house sounds too quiet without you in it. No one has told me a fun fact in weeks.

Yes, people use fucking machines outside of porn. No, I have never used one, and now knowing that it’s possible for someone to get stuck on one, I don’t think I will. I hooked up with someone who had one once, but we never used it.

What's something I might not know about you? I don't think I ever told you about my childhood imaginary friend. His name, oddly enough, was Evan. He was a baseball player and ballerina and had every Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle figurine a seven-year-old could dream of.

Tommy

***

When Tommy pulls the contents of his next letter out of the envelope, two pieces of paper slip out. One is labeled as ‘serious’. The other is labeled as ‘fun’, with a smiley face.

Tommy freezes. He holds one in each hand as if weighing them. The serious one seems to burden his hand a little more, so he opens that one first.

Tommy,

This might not be what you were looking for when you asked for something you don't know about me, but I'll take an opening when I get one, and this is something you should know about.

I told you a couple weeks ago that I had been used my whole life. In order to understand me, I think I need to tell you more about my family, and some of the things I didn’t know about until very recently, but really put the puzzle pieces together about why my childhood was the way it was.

My brother had leukemia. His only hope was a bone marrow transfusion. No one in the family was a match. My parents decided to have another kid in hopes that he would be a match. Genetically, I was. But it didn’t take. Daniel died when I was a year old, and my parents were stuck with a savior kid who couldn’t save anything.

I didn’t understand why they couldn’t stand me growing up. I was the wrong son. I was defective. I grew up in the shadow of a dead nine-year-old I didn’t know existed until I was 28. I have always felt the need to be of use, and never known why.

So when I told you I never intended to treat you as nothing more than a method of self-discovery, it was because I’ve been where you thought you were. I’ve been the one who has put myself in a bad place because that’s where I was needed, where I was useful. You’re a person, Tommy; you’re not a tool.

That’s also why I think I cling on to relationships so badly. I need to be needed. The closer we are, the harder it is for them to untangle themselves from me. I’m really happy you’re still letting me be tangled up with you.

Evan

Every cell in Tommy’s body itches to call Evan. He wants to reach out, to pull him into his arms where Tommy knows he’s safe and warm and loved.

He doesn’t. He can’t. He knows why, and he’s not going to cross that line, no matter how good his intentions. He’s not sure he could hold the line if he got word that Evan had been hurt again, but this is an old hurt, one that Evan knows how to cope with. Tommy has no doubt that if this were something Evan needed support with, he would go to Maddie, Eddie, or Bobby about it.

Tommy takes a deep breath and reaches for the other letter, the one adorned with a smiley face.

Tommy,

We are so not using a fucking machine. I’ll take your normal dick, thanks. I do miss it ;)

Speaking of sex stuff, I finally did some research on the Kinsey scale! I think I'm Kinsey two. Kinsey himself was actually an interesting dude, did you know that he disproved the theory that women have stronger orgasms from vaginal stimulation? He also developed the Kinsey scale while he was studying wasps. He wasn’t the best guy (slept with so many members of his staff and research subjects) but his research is fascinating.

Your childhood best friend was named Evan? Talk about an invisible string. I didn't have many friends other than Maddie growing up, but I never had an imaginary friend either. I didn't have any TMNT figurines, and I certainly wasn't cool enough to be a baseball player/ballerina.

Sorry for breaking this letter into two parts. I’m assuming that you opened the other one first? I had been working on it for a couple weeks, but I had to get my thoughts in order before I sent it because it was something I really needed to say, but didn’t want it to disrupt the flow of our conversation.

I almost forgot about the second moon! It’s an asteroid that is in Earth’s orbit until late November. It was probably a part of the Earth billions of years ago…

***

… so Lena let me walk through the entire day with a smudge of ketchup on my face. I think I saw Kareem hand her $20 after I finally wiped it off…

***

… trying to get Eddie to join a trivia night with me so that he leaves the house every once and a while…

***

… I can't believe you've never seen 10 Things I Hate About You! We'll have to watch it together some day…

***

… It's a date …

***

… I was always a lonely kid, and I've always been a lonely adult, too. I'm so jealous of the family you've built in the 118 and how there for each other you all are. I've never had that with anyone, but I wish I had…

***

… They're there for you too, Tommy. Hen, Chim, Eddie… they're your people too, not just mine…

***

…Here's another conversation we should have had months ago: what are your thoughts on marriage?

***

…My thoughts on marriage are very, very positive. Especially with you…

***

Sorry for the postcard, ran out of paper but wanted to tell you that Lucy enjoyed the lemon loaf recipe. Thank you for sending it. Will send a longer letter when I get off shift

xx T

***

…I just made the best roast chicken. I think I’ve peaked. I wish I could have shared it with you. I’ve missed having you keep me company while I’m cooking…

***

… I was afraid of the power I gave you, and that you gave me…

***

… Cap sprung for a new coffee maker and it's changing our lives…

***

… I know what you mean, I can barely stand to be in the kitchen without you, and meals are way too quiet…

***

… Are you still afraid?…

***

… I think I'll always be a little afraid of it, but I'm learning to sit with that and not it let rule me…

***

Just saw 2:17 on the clock, thought of you <3 E

***

… I swear to god, people have got to stop hiking alone with no water. Are they stupid? Just because LA isn’t boiling alive anymore doesn’t mean you don’t need water. We’ve picked up three this shift alone. Bets going around about how long it’ll be until the next one…

Scrap of paper enclosed in envelope: It was an hour, by the way. Kareem won the bet.

***

Things start to blend together.

There are lots of letters. So many that Evan's drawer in Tommy's dresser is getting hard to close, and the thread of their conversations have gotten so convoluted and hard to follow because their letters overlap. Instead of weekly, envelopes are dropped in mailboxes daily. Some have stamps, having traveled all over LA in mail trucks and distribution centers, and others have a plain top right corner, a sure sign that it had been dropped off in person. Checking his mailbox has quickly become Tommy's favorite part of every day.

Tommy has bought two more packs of fancy stationery and four more packs of stamps. He's also started keeping a pack of postcards and stamps in his duffle bag so he can jot down tidbits from his day and slide them into the mailbox around the corner from Harbor. The first pack had been cheesy LA-themed ones, the second had been a pack of zoo-themed ones he got in exchange for making a donation. He's on the third now, a set of sexy firefighter ones he had found online and that Evan had admitted made him laugh out loud. He imagines Evan opening his mailbox and ten postcards sliding out, each with a text message's worth of information. Tommy doesn't think he minds, but if he does he hasn't let on. Evan just responds to each postcard at some point in his own letter.

Most of their letters are silly, but many are serious. They've talked through their problems at length, and Tommy feels closer to Evan than he ever did when they were dating. Emotionally, at least. Physically, Evan is still across the city.

Until he's not.

It all thanks to happenstance. Tommy doesn't look outside before opening the door to go on a run, but with one foot on the welcome mat he looks up to the end of the driveway and freezes. Because there, parked in front of his mailbox, is Evan's Jeep.

And with one hand on the mailbox, there is Evan.

A minute in either direction and Tommy wouldn't be here. He wouldn't be staring at the love of his life who he isn't supposed to be interacting with in person.

Every part of Tommy is screaming for him, longing to run to Evan and meet him halfway across the yard, to fall into his arms in a moment straight out of a rom-com.

But he doesn't. He stares at Evan and his jaw slightly agape in surprise, and his eyes raw and unblinking, as if he closes them for a millisecond, Evan might be gone.

He's gorgeous. When Tommy's eyes break from Evan's, they drag up and down his body. He looks good, largely the same as he did when Tommy left him in his kitchen — but thankfully, much less torn open.

Evan is the first one to move. He breaks out into a grin, the kind that Tommy knows he couldn't hold back if he tried, and lifts his left hand from the top of the mailbox in a little wave.

That's when Tommy notices it. The new tattoo.

He can't make out what it is — maybe a flower or a tree? — but it lays at the front of Evan's bicep, visible only because he's wearing a sleeveless shirt.

Before the moment escapes, Tommy raises his hand and waves back. Evan's smile grows, and he climbs back into the Jeep, glancing back at Tommy every step of the way like he, too, thinks the man in front of him will disappear if he looks away too long.

The Jeep peels away from the curb and down the street, and Tommy's eyes follow until it disappears around the corner.

He stands there for a moment, dazed, with one foot still inside his house. It was… Evan. He's real. This, their reconciliation… it's real. They're working towards something — towards each other.

Tommy steps out onto his porch and goes to retrieve Evan's note from the mailbox.

Tommy—

Since Eddie is Chris-less and I am… in a not-so-long distance relationship? Whatever. Since neither of us have anyone we have to rush home to, I managed to convince him to join that trivia night with me. We're trying to get Hen and Karen to come so we don't have to take in strangers every week to form a team, but haven't succeeded yet.

Anyways, one of the questions this week was the one that knocked Ken Jennings off of his Jeopardy run. The question is about how H&R Block has a majority seasonal employees, and one of the strangers was being so aggressive and insisting that I was wrong because he works for JP Morgan and was SO sure of himself. I was right (OBVIOUSLY) and when they announced the answer and our team won, I just looked at the guy like "I told you so" and he stood up to walk out, and ran right into a pole. It was hilarious (he was fine). You'll make a wonderful, less asshole-y addition to the team whenever it happens.

Evan

It's mundane. It's all so familiar that it makes Tommy ache for him, ache to hear these stories from his perch on the counter top while Evan stirs a new sauce that Bobby gave him the recipe for, or for the words to sit in the inches between their mouths as they lay facing each other in bed late at night, or be whispered into his chest as Evan lays on top of him on the couch after a shift.

Soon, Tommy tells himself. He will hear Evan's voice again soon enough.

***

Evan,

Of course I'll join trivia night, and I promise not to storm out when you get a question right. I'd much rather kiss you about it, because you're adorable when you're smart, and even more adorable when you're smug.

Sorry if I surprised you the other day when you were dropping off your letter. You kind of caught me by surprise, but god, Evan, it was so good to see you. Did you get a new tattoo? What is it?

Tommy

***

Tommy,

Yes, I got a new tattoo. It's Jee-Yun's birth flower. I've been spending a lot of time with her recently, which has been really fun for me and her but less fun for Chim and Maddie, because they have to deal with the sugar rush I give her when I feed her a ton of cookies.

God, you look good. Did you somehow find a way to get hotter? That shouldn't be allowed.

I miss you. I've been missing you this whole time, but seeing you the other day really made me see it. There was a moment where the hole that's been sitting in my stomach the past few months was filled, and I didn't realize how heavy that emptiness was until it wasn't weighing on me for a moment.

I want to see you again, and be able to talk to you this time. Can we meet up? Do you think we're ready for that?

Evan

Tommy's stomach drops. He wishes this had come two weeks later, so he could say yes. But he hasn't told Evan about Henry, and he doesn't think he will be ready to until they talk.

The letter breaks his heart to write.

***

Buck checks his mailbox on the way out the door, and doesn't crack the seal on the envelope until he's sat on the locker room bench at the station before his shift. In just the first few lines of Tommy's letter, Buck's heart plummets.

Evan,

I'm so sorry, but I don't think I'm ready to see each other in person yet. I don't want you to think I'm still running away, but I actually want to make progress towards being a better partner to you.

I promise you, I just need a couple more weeks. I need closure on something that has nothing to do with you, and I'm not sure how to tell you about it yet. It's not that I don't want to; I just don't know how to even start putting it into words, or what conclusions to reach. I know I'm asking for an exorbitant amount of trust from you, but I'm begging you, Evan. I'm not running away this time; I just need to solve this so that I can explain it to you and can finally let you see all of me. I want to see you so badly, but I don't want to fuck things up further by doing it before I'm ready to do it right.

I want to see you more than anything, I do. But I need to get better, not only for you but also for myself.

Love,

Tommy

Buck tries not to feel completely rejected, but it's hard. He had put his heart on the line and been shot down. For a good reason, but still.

He does want Tommy to be in a better place when they reunite. He doesn't want to push that, and he won't. But god, he misses Tommy with his whole being. Seeing him in front of his house had been the final straw, and made the longing in his chest increase tenfold. It hadn't alleviated in the days since.

Usually, he responds to Tommy's letters immediately. This one, however, he lets simmer in his head through his shift. He wants to give Tommy a measured response, not one tinged by the feeling of rejection still stinging behind Buck's eyes.

Everyone notices that he's a bit off. He's not bouncing around like usual. He gets raised eyebrows (Chimney) and concerned looks (Hen) and sympathetic shoulder pats (Eddie), but no one confronts him until late, when most of the team has settled into the bunk room and Buck remains at the table upstairs.

He's fiddling with a piece of string he found in his pocket when a mug appears in front of him. When his eyes follow the arm that set it there, he is unsurprised to find Bobby sitting in the chair next to him.

"What's going on, Buck?" Bobby says in his caring tone, the one that makes Buck wish he had someone to speak to him like that when he was a kid. "You've been quiet all day."

Buck wraps his hands around the mug and lets the tea warm him, ground him. "Tommy and I have been… writing letters."

"I know," Bobby replies, "You've seemed a lot happier since you two got back in contact."

"It was… it was always meant to be temporary, y'know? We both missed each other, but I needed to learn to trust him again and I needed to learn to go slow this time and not jump all the way in, and he needed to work on himself so that when we do get back together, it's… good."

"That sounds very healthy."

"And it has been! But I was dropping a letter off in his mailbox because I wanted him to get it quickly and I… I saw him."

Bobby's eyebrows shoot towards his hairline. "Oh."

Buck lets out a dry laugh and takes a sip of his tea, "Yeah, oh."

"And how was that?"

"It was…" Buck pauses. "God, Bobby, I didn't think it was possible for me to miss him any more. But there he was, in one of those stupid hot sleeveless hoodies, and it just hit me ten times worse."

"So you're just missing him extra today?"

"No, that was… that was a couple days ago. I realized that I was ready, that I… I want to see him again. So I wrote to him saying that, that I wanted to meet up and he…"

"He's not ready yet."

Buck huffs and shakes his head. "I opened the letter when I got here this morning. I haven't replied yet, I — I don't know what to say." He sighs. "I don't know, Bobby. Maybe this has all been a waste of energy. Maybe I should have never sent that first letter and just let him go."

"Well, I don't think that, Buck."

Buck's eyes shoot to Bobby's. "You don't?"

"No, not at all. Look, you do trust him now, right? That he's going to be honest about where he's at instead of just leaving again?"

"I — I thought I did, but now he's —"

"He's telling you where he is now, Buck. He's being honest with you. He's not saying he never wants to meet up, right?"

"No, he — he just said a couple weeks. Something he has to do, but he didn't say what."

"So there's an end in sight. Trust him, trust that he's telling the truth."

Buck looks up at him, eyes a little watery. "Thank you, Bobby."

Bobby's hand lands firmly on Buck's shoulder. "Anytime, Buck." He rises from his chair. "Now let's go get some rest before—"

The scream of the bell shakes the firehouse.

"Before that happens."

Tommy's hands are shaking when he opens Evan's letter. He's terrified that Evan will take this as a rejection of him, instead of something that Tommy doesn't want to do but has to in order to actually fix the problems that made him ruin things in the first place.

***

Tommy,

I understand. Thank you for your honesty, and I'm glad you're making an effort. I don't think you're running, and I appreciate that you trust me enough to be honest about it.

I won't lie, I felt a little rejected at first. That tends to be my immediate reaction to most things, that I'm the problem — even when I know I'm not. But you explained it the best you could, and I do trust you to tell me more when you have the words for it. Until then, I miss you, and I hope whatever it is you're about to do helps you move on and back towards me.

Evan

Tommy lets out a breath and presses the letter to his chest, letting the pure cold relief wash over his shoulders. It was a boundary, but it had… worked. Evan wasn't calling him selfish for it, or accusing him of making excuses, or any of the other catastrophe scenarios Tommy had been imagining over the past couple days.

There's another paper in the envelope, this one an index card Tommy can only assume was nicked from Bobby's office or Hen's leftover study materials.

We had a call involving one someone who had almost a foot of fingernail on each finger. We all trimmed ours immediately after getting back to the station. Did you know the world record holder's longest nail is like 4.5 feet? How do they do anything?

Tommy makes a face and picks up his pen to respond.

***

… That's so gross. I once came across people who had tried and failed to break the world record for largest pizza, and were giving it away. Hey, I'm not going to say no to free pizza…

***

…You know how they say dogs look like their owners? This guy had twelve identical Dachshunds …

***

… I saw Hen and Karen the other day. Karen made it inside the house before chewing me out for messing things up with you…

***

…It's okay, we're recovering from it. Hen said you seemed like you were on steady feet, and I was so relieved to hear it …

***

…I've got plans for tomorrow, and I'm scared shitless. Wish me luck.

***

That's incredibly vague, but good luck. I love you.

Tommy carries that one in his pocket, and traces his fingers over the ink as he steps through the doorway of the cafe.

***

Evan,

I’m ready. 

I want to tell you about that last thing I had to do, but it requires some backstory.  A couple years after I broke it off with Abby, I got into what I viewed as my first big gay relationship. It was the first time I had seen someone I had sex with multiple times, and saw them outside of when we were sleeping together. I told my coworkers he was my boyfriend. I was head over heels for him, but we never actually talked about what we meant to each other. We really should have, because he saw me as one of many friends with benefits. 

I can’t really blame him. I don’t think it counts as cheating if I assumed a promise of exclusivity that was never actually given, but it felt that way. He wasn’t someone who ever planned to settle down with one partner, which is what I wanted. What I want now, with you. 

So I did the stupid thing: I stayed. 

I thought that if I were a good enough partner, if I were fun enough and enticing enough and supportive enough, he would dump everyone else. I never outright asked him to leave them, or told him that I wanted to be exclusive. I even let him believe that I knew about the others the whole time.

Eventually, he did decide one person was enough for him; it just wasn’t me. He told me he was breaking it off with all his friends with benefits to be with his childhood best friend. Thy hadn't spoken in years, but the friend had just come out of the woodwork with some grand love confession. That’s hard to measure up to. That relationship is what made me feel like I wasn’t long-term material. 

I needed to get closure on that fucked up relationship. We met up, and I got it all off my chest. Hearing from him that it had nothing to do with me being inadequate helped, even more than I thought it would. 

I told him about you. He asked to meet you, said we could do a double date with him and his spouse. I told him I wasn’t sure I wanted any further contact with him, but that I would think about it. He was understanding. 

Which brings me back to us. I miss you, I love you, can we meet up? The coffee shop we went to after that bad first date? I hear it’s pretty good for second chances. I’ll be there next Monday at 2pm. I think that should be enough time for this to get to you, and you to send something back in case you think it isn’t a good idea. 

All my love,

Tommy

A grin bursts across Buck's face.

***

Tommy,

I'll be there. I'll save everything for then.

I love you.

Evan

***

Tommy's already claimed a table when Buck arrives ten minutes early. Buck will always recognize the set of his shoulders, even hunched with nervous tension. He's rubbing his thumb along the rim of his coffee mug, and Buck recognizes his usual order sitting across from him.

Tommy ordered their drinks as dine-in. He plans to talk to Buck long enough for both of them to finish their coffees. He plans to stay.

When Buck approaches, he lays a hand on Tommy's shoulder. Tommy looks up at him with open vulnerable eyes, and something blooms across his face — something like gratitude, something like bliss, something like love.

"Hey, Evan."

[pxgeturner]

so. i’ve tried to figure out a plot for this year via spitballing a ton randdom ass headcanons for public school!linny, and hoping one would snowball like as usually happens with me... but nothing really stuck. n then i read this back, n realized this is actually kinda fun, if not a bit chaotic to read, and i figured you'd enjoy it. sooo... sorry that this acutally super duper late queen, @lesbianjackies you know i love you <3

perfect (soft)masc/femme couple talk with the wall if you disagree.

luna loves going over to ginny's house because of all the excitement— ginny and her parents laughing, her brothers wrestling for a piece of bacon on the floor. her house can be really quiet so it's a good change of pace

“Moon” and “Sun” contact names

right after they started dating, ginny heard a guy at school call luna “Loony,” so she punched him. no more Loony Lovegood.

lots of picnic dates

also milkshake dates

ginny is a monster girl. luna loves tea though.

luna always brings ginny after-practice snacks and juice (+ monster)

they cut each other's hair

a bit after they started dating, ginny hand luna cut off like, all of her hair. for the forseeable future she's keeping it that way.

ginny poses for luna’s paintings. luna is always at ginny's practices

ginny has their next 5 anniversaries planned out

they pass lovenotes in the hallway

bookstore dates where ginny is essentially just following luna around like a puppy. not bcz she doesn’t like books—she loves reading but she just loves seeing all of luna's little reactions to book blurbs.

most of the time they dont even buy anything

btw, lots of window shopping dates

makeover nights

luna doesn't like to yell but is the loudest person screaming at ginny's games

the two of them playing card games at lunch

flashcards during finals szn

dates where it’s just the two of them going on long walks

or late night drives

late night calls after luna wakes up from a weird or bad dream. ginny always answers, she’s already awake, might as well talk to her girlfriend. insomniac. needs to stop drinking caffeine.

them learning how to cook together

luna convinces ginny to take another art class. Ceramics 1 this time. the ginger LOVES it. the clay is sensory heaven or whatever she said. way better than pencil on paper

for her final, ginny made a flower vase in the image of luna's naked body. she called it “venus incarnate”

ginny got luna to take a weightlifting course. Luna didn't love it, but now goes gym with ginny regularly.

if it wasn’t obvious, luna's sketchbook is filled with ginny. Ginny's eyes, nose, mouth, hands, legs. Just, Ginny.

they eat lunch in one of the art classrooms so luna can work on her AP studio and AP art history stuff. wanna guess what her portfolio theme is?

luna's favorite outfit that ginny wears is a sports bra and grey/red sweatpants. post gym.

but she would say that it's this one brown sweater and dickies.

ginny's favorite of luna's outfits is this a satin skirt with that one big sweater that goes way off luna's left shoulder and shows a peek of whatever bralette she's wearing that day.

they take turns being car DJ

whenever they go out, ginny doodles snoopy on a napkin and gives it to luna

luna keeps a box of them under her bed

ginny bought the two of them matching carabiners

luna stress bakes and delivers most of the yield to the weasleys’

Luna gave ginny her “L” necklace to wear

when they have sleepovers, ginny braids luna's hair when she can't sleep.

ginny's team was really nice when they met luna, what a relief.

mrs. weasley overfeeds luna. (luna's too nice to refuse her) and ginny as to shoo away her mom.

they make jewelry together.

theving from hobby lobby and michael's

speaking of michael's. ginny crochets ad makes luna little thingies (or big thingies) for special occasions. (cough she made luna a who ass intricate ass tote-purse thing for her 18th and it's luna's favorite thing ever in the word)

obviously luna paints most of her gifts. ginny gets them framed.

lots of rewatching of 10 things i hate about you and new girl.

when they watch stuff they figure out fun ways to flavor the popcorn. cheese. taco. pizza. chocolate. caramel. birthday cake. etc.

luna keeps count of ginny's freckles. in case a new one shows up.

luna's phone background is the exact hexcode of ginny's eyes.

ginny's is luna in a meadow after they went on a hike

pillowfights? idk just ginny being weird and body slamming luna on the bed with a pillow to cushion the blow.

ginny bites luna.

they go out like, once a month-ish to this 18+ club and are like. the hottest coolest couple on the dancefloor. sorry to break it to you, none of you have a chance if they're on the floor.

by the way they pregamed ofc. thank u george and fred !!!

ginny is bartender extrodenaire. just fyi. luna loves it when gin makes her silly little drinks

their graduation picutres are almost all ginny kissng luna.

luna's graducation gift from her dad was a month-long trip. just her and ginny in a place of her/their choosing.

let's just say that summer rocked.

[persistentplums]

Loss, grief and mothers are interesting in The Bear.

The card of mother Mary with Jesus Christ, one of her son’s who famously dies is such an interesting way to relate to Mikey. From all the shots the card is shown which I think is telling of how Mikey and Donna are like.

But right now I’m not gonna talk about Mikey and Donna, I can get into it but my focus is on Carmy and Sydney and how grief and loss is a pit within them.

With forks being a great look into the Berzatto’s it did make me realize something, Carmy uses his family as motivators. In s1 his monologue about cooking to prove something felt specifically towards Mikey, his anger, hurt, and pain that Mikey didn’t see him. So he put his head down to prove his brother wrong. In forks we see why he headed to New York as an escape, fully absorbed.

His destructive family motivates Carmy into moving away to focus on cooking, his loss of his brother causes him to focus on cooking, in his hurt he focuses on cooking. No matter how you look at it Carmy cooks maybe less because of a passion and more because that is all he has in his feeling of grief. In s2 ep1 he tells richie plainly he doesn’t do it because it’s fun or he loves it. It’s something that HAS to be done because he can’t think of anything else to be or do. It was his brother, it was his mom, and if it can be him too maybe then he will be closer finally to them.

Sydney on the other hand is a constant of working with what she has. You can’t grieve who you don’t know, and yet she does in a way we don’t know exactly yet, but the pieces in s2 kinda got my mind rolling.

Sydney cooks as a means of connection, she is a quilt of Chicago and people. Bits and pieces carried around. Her grief is how things don’t stick, they burn out and all that’s left is her watching it go. I have a feeling in the future we see more about Sydney life and her relationship how she builds herself out of pieces because unlike Carmy she’s only had her dad. Her mom are pieces of her dad and pictures. A grief that isn’t tangible, made of paper ready to fly away if not held strong. This reflects on her burning need, she cooks bc she likes it, it makes her closer to people, it’s an impact she can see and feel. Nobody forgets good food.

At the core it feels like both Sydney and Carmy have a passion for cooking, but s2 made it a little clearer on how that passion looks like and why. I just find it neat to look at it through the contrasting mothers between the two.

Unfortunately for Nat I do worry for her, her relationship is far different from the two of them which I’ll probably write later or wait for s3.